Death of a Nurse

by M C Beaton

“They can maybe get fingerprints off the neck.”

  “But they think she was strangled with a scarf or some sort of material.”

  “Damn. I’d forgotten that.”

  They were joined by Jimmy Anderson. “I’ve got heavy expenses,” he said. “I had to take that lawyer, Cameron Tinety, out for a lot of drams to get information out of him. He says there was a will leaving everything to Gloria Dainty.”

  “There’s a motive!” exclaimed Fiona.

  “But he changed it and said he wanted the old will leaving everything to his son. But it was changed two weeks afore Gloria was murdered.”

  “Andrew may not have known that,” said Charlie. “I’ll ask Juris if Andrew had visited the old man before.”

  He went into the house. “Macbeth,” said Fiona, “tell me exactly what this odd creature said.”

  Hamish began to talk but she interrupted him. “Didn’t you take notes?”

  “I was afraid it would put her off, ma’am. But I remember everything she said.”

  When he had finished, Fiona sighed. “What a load of rubbish. Do you believe in this second sight nonsense?”

  “It’s awfy hard to prove,” said Hamish. “Folk usually tell you they saw whatever coming after it happens.”

  “There are enough of us here,” said Fiona. “Go back to your usual duties, Macbeth.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll wait for Charlie.”

  “No, leave him here. Anderson, you report back to Strathbane and type up a full report.”

  Charlie came out to join them. “This was the son’s first visit since the old man moved up here.”

  “We’d better talk to him again,” Fiona said with another sigh. “Let’s go, Charlie.”

  Back at the police station, Jimmy followed Hamish in. “Any whisky?”

  “I think you’ve already had a skinful,” said Hamish. “You’d best be on your road.”

  “Thon Fiona has the hots for Charlie.”

  “But she’s married?”

  “Aye, and to none other than Lord Staford McBean, high court judge.”

  “Are you sure? He’s in Edinburgh and she’s out o’ Inverness.”

  “Sure as sure.”

  “But she’s called Fiona Herring! Not Lady McBean.”

  “Keeps her maiden name for work. C’mon, laddie, give us a dram. I am your senior officer.”

  Hamish sighed and took a new bottle of whisky down from a cupboard.

  “But she cannae fancy our Charlie,” protested Hamish.

  “Why not? Big strong fellow like that.”

  “Well, if that’s true, there’s one good thing. Our innocent Charlie seems to be woman-proof. Never really notices them. Treats Priscilla like a sister.”

  Jimmy took a gulp of whisky. “It was a good thing it was you and not Blair interviewing that nutter up in Kinlochbervie. He’d ha’ had the lassie sectioned and hauled off to the nut house. Do you believe that second sight stuff?”

  “Elspeth Grant sometimes seems able to see things coming.”

  “Load o’ bollocks, if you ask me.”

  There followed a quiet few days for Hamish. Charlie wasn’t even around, Fiona having kept him down at Strathbane going over and over statements. Charlie phoned once saying miserably that he wished the whole sorry business was over because he hated Strathbane and missed Lochdubh and the friendly dinners with the colonel and his wife.

  Hamish felt he should be glad to have the police station to himself again. But somehow, he felt lonely. He was just thinking of going to Braikie to see Dick and Anka when the phone rang. It was Fiona, sounding impatient.

  “Get back up to Kinlochbervie,” she ordered, “and go from door to door. There must be something we’ve missed.”

  Hamish was about to point out that the police had already been from door to door, but bit his lip and agreed to go. He whistled to Sonsie and Lugs, put them in the Land Rover, and set off.

  He realised he hadn’t had any breakfast and decided to stop at the café first. Great mountainous waves were pounding the beach. Black clouds streamed in from the west. The air was full of salt and blowing sand. The gulls were huddled on the cliff shelves and crannies. It seemed as if the whole world were in motion. A rowan tree outside the café tossed its bare branches up as if pleading with the menacing sky.

  He pushed open the door and went in. “I was just about to phone you,” said Sheena Farquar.

  “Why? What’s up?” asked Hamish.

  “It’s that daft lassie, Jessie McGowan. Herself hasnae been seen around. A neighbour knocked at her door but got no reply.”

  “Have you any idea where she might have gone?” asked Hamish.

  “Could be anywhere. Mind you, she was always mumbling about some fairy cave in the cliffs, but if there was one, the schoolboys would have found it. She said the fairies sang to her.”

  “I’ll have a look,” said Hamish, “afore the storm gets worse. Could you make me three bacon sandwiches to go?”

  “Right you are. You must be hungry.”

  Hamish did not want to say that his cat and dog were partial to bacon sandwiches. He drank a cup of coffee while he waited, listening uneasily to the shrieking of the wind.

  He climbed into the Land Rover, unwrapped two of the bacon baps and passed them over to Lugs and Sonsie in the back, then ate his own while putting off the moment when he would need to get out and start to search the cliffs.

  At last, he took off his cap, knowing the gale would whip it away and he needed both hands if he had to climb.

  He stumbled along the sand, past where Gloria’s body had been found, becoming increasingly uneasy. They had been inside Harrison’s house when he had told Fiona what Jessie had said. Had he put her at risk? A great buffet of wind sent him flying into a tall standing rock and he cursed and rubbed his shoulder. He searched and searched but there was no sign of any cave. He was about to turn back when he heard a weird whistling and moaning sound coming from some way up the cliffs. He screwed up his eyes against the flying sand and dried seaweed. Halfway up the cliff, he saw a dark slit in the rock. He began to climb.

  As he grew nearer, he wondered if this was Jessie’s fairy cave. The wind was causing unearthly noises to emanate from it, shrill keening sounds that he could hear despite the tumult of the storm. He finally edged his way in through the narrow entrance. It opened up into a cave. He unhitched a torch from his belt and shone it around.

  In a corner, crumpled up like a discarded doll, lay the body of Jessie McGowan. He bent over her. There was no pulse. Her face was contorted and there were signs all around that she had vomited. He took out his mobile phone but there was no signal.

  His journey down from the cave was perilous as the wind seemed determined to pluck him off the cliff face and throw him into the sea. Worse, the tide was up and he had to battle through breakers until he reached dry land, soaked to the skin. He went into the café and asked for a roll of paper towels.

  “How did you get like that?” asked Sheena.

  “Jessie’s dead.” He took out his phone. No signal.

  “Use the landline on the counter,” said Sheena. “This is awful.”

  A “weather bomb,” as the forecasters now called it, was due to hit the northwest of Scotland. Hamish reflected sourly that one day they might wake up to the fact that hurricane-force winds were becoming more and more frequent.

  Fiona, Charlie, and Jimmy were the first to arrive and to find Hamish dressed in the late Mr. McGowan’s old sweater and trousers.

  “Where is your uniform?” demanded Fiona.

  “It’s hanging up in the kitchen to dry,” said Hamish. “I nearly got drowned on the road back from the cave. We’ll need to wait until the tide goes out.”

  “But we had no trouble getting along the beach to Gloria’s body,” said Fiona.

  “There wasnae a hurricane like this, ma’am,” said Hamish.

  Jimmy had bought a bottle of whisky. “You look as if you could do with a dram, Hamish,” he s
aid.

  “Give him one,” snapped Fiona, “and then screw the top firmly back on the bottle. How long is this storm due to last?”

  “Until this evening,” said Hamish.

  “And it’s already as black as pitch,” said Fiona. The café had three tables. She sat down at one and indicated that Charlie should join her. Hamish and Jimmy sat at another table. Fiona ordered coffee for all of them. Jimmy managed to get a slug of whisky into his cup when Fiona wasn’t looking.

  The procurator fiscal arrived and Fiona settled down to give him a full report.

  I actually wish Blair were in on this one, thought Hamish. I’d like to see him trying to get his fat carcase up into that cave.

  But Blair was busy plotting the downfall of Fiona.

  Chapter Six

  The clouds dispell’d, the sky resum’d her light,

  And Nature stood, recover’d of her fright,

  But fear, the last of ills, remain’d behind,

  And horror heavy sat on ev’ry mind.

  —Dryden

  While Hamish and the rest waited for the full contingent from Strathbane to arrive, Detective Chief Inspector Blair was seated in the grimy office of private detective Willie Dunne.

  “I’ve got a wee job for you, Willie,” said Blair. “You’ll be paid well if you keep your mouth shut. Remember, I hae the power to shut ye down.”

  Willie was nicknamed Creepy Willie. He was a small Glaswegian with a comb-over of dyed brown hair on his freckled pate and a face that seemed to be all nose. He specialised in divorces.

  “Out wi’ it,” he said.

  “There’s this inspector o’ police called Fiona Herring. That’s her maiden name. She’s married to a high court judge, Lord Staford McBean.”

  “Haud it right there, mac,” said Willie. “This is flying too high.”

  “You’ll do it,” said Blair, “or I’ll have you for dealing drugs out o’ this office.”

  “You wouldnae!”

  “Like a shot.”

  Willie knew of Blair’s reputation and that the detective would plant drugs in his office and arrest him if he didn’t do what was asked.

  “Okay. Out wi’ it.”

  “This Fiona is sweet on a copper called Charlie Carter, based at Lochdubh. He’s a big lummox of an islander. I’ve watched the way she looks at him. I want you to catch them in the act.”

  “How the hell am I going to get into the polis station in Lochdubh?”

  “No need for that. A kiss would be good enough. Does Hamish Macbeth know you?”

  “No.”

  “So I’ll map out for you where they are and where they go. You pretend to be a local photographer. Thon bitch is ruining my career.”

  Blair opened an envelope. “Here’s a photo. I snapped it off when they werenae looking.”

  Willie looked gloomily at the photo. It showed Fiona in her uniform, sitting at a desk. Charlie stood behind her. Fiona, thought Willie, looked as hard as nails.

  “So,” said Blair, “you’d better start. They’re up at a site outside Kinlochbervie. Found another dead body. The press will have gathered by now. The storm’s died down.”

  It was ten in the evening and the winds had charged off to plague the east. The café was open and a flushed and happy Sheena was busy serving food and drinks to the press.

  Hamish, in his dry uniform but with newspaper stuffed inside his still-damp boots, was with Fiona and Charlie, waiting for the forensic team to finish their work. The pathologist, an elderly man brought all the way over from Aberdeen, could not climb up to the cave and was waiting for the body to be stretchered down to where a tent had already been erected to receive it.

  “Someone up at that hunting lodge must have heard my report,” fretted Hamish.

  “We’ll get over there when we’ve got the pathologist’s preliminary finding,” said Fiona.

  “Perhaps Jimmy should go ahead,” suggested Hamish.

  Fiona rounded on him. “I will do any interviews, Macbeth. Do try to remember who’s in charge here. Go and interview the dead woman’s neighbours.”

  “Okay, let’s go, Charlie,” said Hamish.

  “Charlie will stay here with me,” said Fiona. “And everyone, keep your voices down. The press are listening.”

  Before he left, Hamish turned in the doorway and looked at the press. He recognised a few from the provincial papers, but there was one seedy-looking man and Hamish did not like the way he was studying Fiona.

  Sheena followed him out and gave him a flask of coffee and a wrapped ham sandwich. “That’ll keep you going,” she said.

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Hamish.

  “Aye, well, it’s a pity you’re not the one she fancies.”

  “Are you talking about the inspector?”

  “She seems a hard woman, but when she looks at thon Charlie, her face goes all soft.”

  “Maybe it’s just maternal instinct,” said Hamish.

  “Och, away wi’ ye. Thon’s a budding romance.”

  “Have you got a camera?” asked Hamish.

  “Aye.”

  “There’s a fellow there wi’ the press who disnae seem to belong, a ferrety wee man wi’ a big nose and a comb-over. Could you get me a photo of him and e-mail it to me? Here’s my card.”

  “I can do that.”

  Hamish climbed into the Land Rover and drove to Kinlochbervie. The first thing he saw were policemen going from door to door. He cursed Fiona but then remembered that Sonsie and Lugs had been locked up in the Land Rover for too long. So he drove up onto the moors and let them out and sat eating the ham sandwich and drinking coffee as his pets ran through the heather.

  The trouble with winter in the Highlands, thought Hamish, was that there was so little sunshine, it was like living in long hours of darkness.

  He was sure that Jessie had been poisoned. He had said nothing about the fairy cave. How could it have been done? Say someone called on her and Jessie had started to talk about the fairy cave. Maybe a present of a bottle of something and why don’t you take some to the fairies? He had not searched the cave. He had backed out quickly so as not to contaminate the crime scene. Would the forensic team have been to her house yet? Would they even know what to look for? He called to his animals and set off full-speed for Jessie’s home.

  There was no police tape yet outside. He put on his full forensic gear and then tried the door. It wasn’t locked. He searched the kitchen first. Two cups and saucers had been washed and were lying on the draining board. He made his way quickly to the living room. He knew he had to be quick. As soon as the neighbours got the news, they would be gathering outside. And he didn’t want to be caught by the forensic team. The living room was neat and clean. He was about to turn away when his eye caught something glittering on the floor near the sofa. He bent down and examined it. It was a strand of sparkling ribbon, the kind used to wrap a present.

  He hurried out and took off his forensic suit and went to question the neighbours. Had any strangers been seen?

  The woman next door said that only a couple of what she described as Bible bashers, a man and a woman, had called the day before. No one else. Their description didn’t match anyone that Hamish had seen at the hunting box.

  Whoever it had been, thought Hamish, could have come during the night and left a package on the doorstep. Maybe Jessie had decided to share some treat with her fairies in the cave. Or could it have been suicide? No, he couldn’t believe that. She had looked as if she had died in agony. He diligently knocked at doors up and down the street. Jessie had been well liked, considered daft but harmless, and the neighbours were shocked to learn of her death.

  More police arrived and started going from door to door. Police tape was put up in front of Jessie’s house.

  Neighbours gathered in the street, talking in whispers.

  Hamish returned to the café to be told by a local reporter that the police had left. Guessing they had gone to Harrison’s, he set off. As he was turni
ng into the drive, his iPad clicked. He opened it. There was a message from Sheena. “You ran off before I could catch you. Attached is a photo of the man you’re interested in.” Hamish clicked on the photo and studied it. Then he moved on to park outside the house.

  Fiona, Charlie, and Jimmy were standing outside. “Why aren’t you at Kinlochbervie?” demanded Fiona.

  “Overmanning,” said Hamish. “You’ve already got the place covered in police. But I’ve got something to show you.” He took out a forensic bag and held it up. Inside the clear material could be seen the little sparkly strip of ribbon. Hamish did not want to say he had found it inside the house so he said he had found it on the front doorstep. “If she’s been poisoned,” he said, “this could have come off some sort of present, maybe a bottle of something. She could have taken it up to her favourite cave, drunk it, and died there. Any idea what the poison might have been?”

  “No,” said Fiona wearily. “Andrew Harrison has pulled so many strings that I’ve been ordered by the high-ups to tread carefully. There’s not much we can do until the results of the autopsy come through. We’ll meet here in the morning.”

  Jimmy followed Hamish into the police station in Lochdubh, waiting impatiently for whisky while Hamish lit the stove and put out food and water for his pets.

  “At last,” he grumbled when Hamish put the bottle of whisky and a glass on the table.

  “I’ve something to show you,” said Hamish. He switched on his iPad and showed Jimmy the photograph Sheena had sent him. “Recognise this man?”

  “I’ve seen him before,” said Jimmy. “Gie me a moment. Nothing like whisky to lubricate the brain.”

  Hamish was sure he had recognised the man immediately and simply wanted an excuse for another drink.

  “Aye, I’ve got it now. Thon’s Creepy Willie.”

  “And who in the name o’ the wee man is Creepy Willie?”

  “He’s a sleazeball o’ a private detective. Divorce cases. Think he deals drugs but haven’t been able to catch him yet.”