by M C Beaton
“We’ll need to come back in the morning,” said Hamish, “and ask all around.”
He reported back to Jimmy, who told him to write up what he’d got and see if he could find out anything else. Blair was holding an impromptu press conference, swollen up with ego like a bullfrog until a reporter asked him what Strathbane thought about the mistake in pinning the murders on Malky, upon which Blair abruptly stalked to his car and got driven off.
In the morning, Charlie arrived with the news that Mr. Harrison had phoned and wanted to book himself and his daughter-in-law into the hotel. He said he was weary of what seemed like a constant police presence.
“George has said he’ll try to get as much information out of him as possible,” said Charlie.
“Let’s hope the colonel is careful. If our murderer comes for Harrison, he might take out the colonel as well. You’d better nursemaid them, Charlie, and I’ll cover for you. I’ll get back up to Braikie and see if I can find out more about our mysterious car cleaner.”
Before he left, Hamish took the dogs for a walk. He met the Currie sisters and, remembering how rude he had been to them, blurted out an apology.
“What you need is a good woman,” said Nessie.
“Good woman,” echoed Jessie.
Hamish touched his cap and hurried on. Nessie scampered after him. “There’s the widow Banks up at the churchyard at the grave of her wee boy what died of meningitis. She would make a man a good wife. Rosie Banks needs to move on.”
Hamish looked across at the churchyard where a woman was slumped in front of a gravestone.
“I’ll maybe have a word with her later,” he said, and made his escape.
He had taken photographs of everyone at the hunting box on his iPad. He set out for Braikie. The landscape was glittering from the recent rain. He glanced up at the mountains, steel grey against the washed-out sky, noticing every gully and crag sharply defined, and knew that was a sign of more rain to come.
He had not taken his pets with him. Since the loss of Sonsie, he did not feel the need for their constant company. He often thought about Sonsie and mourned the loss of his big cat.
He went straight to the car wash and showed the photographs to the two Lithuanians. They studied them closely and then one of them pointed to the photo of Juris. “Maybe,” he said.
“Was he Eastern European like you?” asked Hamish. They said he hadn’t spoken, merely handed over a piece of paper asking that the car be cleaned inside and out.
“Anything odd about the inside?” asked Hamish. “Bloodstains? Signs of violence?”
They looked at him, puzzled.
Hamish went to the translation app on his iPad, typed in a series of questions, got them translated into Lithuanian, and passed them over. They typed back that the boot had been muddy. Nothing in the car but a scarf.
What had they done with the scarf? Handed it over when the man came back for the car. What did the scarf look like?
Paisley pattern.
Hamish wondered how he could get Juris on his own. Police would still be combing the hunting box for clues. Then he remembered that Juris always answered the phone.
He rang him up and said he wanted to talk to him away from the house and suggested Juris drive to a pub called the Drop Inn in Braikie.
The pub was thin of customers. A brewery had tried to encourage more customers by turning it into a gastropub, but it seems the hard drinkers of Braikie preferred the dinginess of the Red Lion. He took a table by the window and waited. He was just beginning to think Juris would not come when he saw him parking outside.
Juris joined him and asked abruptly, “What’s up?”
“You know Helen’s body has been found?”
Juris nodded. “Do you mind if I have a beer?” he asked.
Hamish went to the bar and got him a pint. He stared straight at Juris and said, “Why did you have Helen’s car cleaned?”
He expected a hot denial but Juris said calmly, “It’s my job.”
“What!”
“Look, Mr. Harrison has a mania about clean cars. That includes Helen’s. I protested before that I wasn’t there to be a servant to a nurse and he told me to obey orders. It was my job. So I check the garages as usual and there’s her wee car covered from top to toe in mud. So I took it to the car wash. Got a receipt and put it down on my expenses.”
“When did you find the car?”
“It was the morning before we found she’d disappeared.”
“And did you report this to the police?”
“It’s like this. That man, Blair, is out to pin it on me because I’m a foreigner in his eyes. If I told him, he would have dragged me off. You know he would. That’s why I lied to you and told you I hadn’t had the car cleaned.”
“You could be accused of tampering with evidence,” said Hamish.
“I was only doing my job as usual,” said Juris stubbornly.
“Describe the car.”
“Like I said, it was top-to-bottom in mud. Helen was a bit of a slob and the inside was full of sweetie wrappers and old beer cans. I looked in the boot and it was all muddy.”
“There was a scarf. Do you have it?”
“It’s in my car.”
“I’ll need that. I’m sorry, Juris, but you’re in for a rough time. I’m afraid I’ll need to call Strathbane. That could have been the scarf that strangled her. I’ll try to get Jimmy Anderson to deal with it.”
After Hamish had called Jimmy, he was told not to let Juris out of his sight. He, Jimmy, would take Juris in for questioning.
Jimmy eventually arrived with two police cars following.
Is he really innocent? wondered Hamish. Or am I leaning backwards against Blair’s hatred of foreigners?
There seemed to be nothing else to do but go back to Lochdubh, look over his notes, and hope there might be just something he had missed.
As he drove along the waterfront, a thin drizzle was beginning to fall. He saw that Mrs. Banks was still in the graveyard. He stopped his vehicle and got out.
He walked up to her and said gently, “You’ll get soaked. Come away, lassie. There’s nothing you can do now but move on.”
She was a plump little woman in her thirties with rosy cheeks, cheeks that were now blotched with tears. She had lost her husband to cancer and then immediately afterwards, her six-year-old to meningitis.
Hamish helped her up. “You need bereavement counselling,” he said. “Go and see Dr. Brodie and he’ll fix you up. Would your husband and boy want you to live like this?”
She scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and sighed. “I almost envy folk whose bairns are murdered.”
“Why?”
“Because when the murderer is caught and punished, that’s closure.”
“I think that’s a television fiction,” said Hamish sadly. “If it’s a child, there is no closure. Just courage. I’ll walk you to the doctor’s now.”
After he had delivered her to Dr. Brodie, he walked through the rain and up to a hill overlooking Lochdubh to where his first dog, Towser, was buried. He sat down on the wet heather and stared at the simple cross that marked the dog’s grave. How he had grieved over the loss of Towser! How he had sworn never to have another pet. But Archie had given him Lugs and then the vet had given him Sonsie.
Hamish sat there for a long time until he realised he was soaking wet.
He made his way back to the station and changed into civilian clothes. A seed of an idea was beginning to take place in his brain. It was far-fetched. It was outrageous. But somehow, it fit.
He phoned Charlie and said, “Call down here. I’ve an idea and I need your help.”
The colonel was sitting with his wife, Mr. Harrison, and Greta when Hamish arrived with Charlie.
“We would like a word in private with Mr. Harrison,” said Hamish. “May we use the manager’s office?”
“You can’t walk in here and order me around,” said the colonel.
“Please, Geor
ge,” said Charlie quietly. “It’s important.”
“Oh, very well. Push me along, Greta.”
“It’s all right. I can manage,” said Hamish, seizing the wheelchair.
The office was lit with a shaded green lamp on the desk. Hamish took out a powerful tape recorder and laid it down on the desk.
“What’s up with you?” snarled Harrison.
“Mr. Percy Harrison,” said Hamish. “I am charging you with the wilful murder of Helen Mackenzie.”
“Why on earth would I kill the bitch?”
“Grief,” said Hamish. “She killed your son. You overheard me accusing her of the murder of Andrew and of Gloria and Miss McGowan. Andrew was your only son. Somehow, you shook a confession out of her and then you strangled her. You can walk. I know that. I saw you once. You’re a powerful man. You waited until the middle of the night, maybe slung the dead body over your knees in the wheelchair, and took the body out to her car and dumped it in the boot. You had strangled her with her scarf. You took the body to the dump, shoved it in an old trolley, and piled the trolley up with cans and bottles. You put the car back, knowing Juris would find it and clean it. You hated her so much, you didn’t even bother to hide anything. You could have cleared out her room and made it look as if she had fled.
“But you had murdered her and got your revenge and that was all you wanted.”
“You gormless idiot,” roared Harrison. “What proof do you have?”
“Your DNA is on the scarf that strangled her,” lied Hamish. He knew it would take ages for any results to come in. “Forensics took the DNA of everyone at the hunting box ages ago.”
Harrison sat for a long time, staring at the lamp on the desk as if hypnotised. Then he said, “Yes, I did hear you. Andrew might be pompous but he was my son. I told Helen to wheel me over to the garage because I wanted to look for something. Then I got her by the throat. I said if she confessed, I would let her escape. If she said nothing, I would kill her. I took a gun and jammed it in her mouth until she nodded. She went on about how she thought I loved her. Rubbish. She said Gloria had always been scoring off her in the past and had taken her boyfriend away. One day, Gloria had called on her and shown her that diamond pendant I gave her. Helen wailed it just wasn’t fair. She started pleading and babbling that she had done it all for me. That she had killed Gloria to protect me. I could have shot her then and there. But I put the gun in my pocket. I told her I would let her go if she came back into the house and typed out a confession.
“It seemed to take hours with her breaking off to try to justify herself and begging and weeping. She was the one who sent that filthy anonymous letter so that my last memory of poor Gloria was shouting at her. At last she was finished and I got her to sign it. She even confessed to wearing the scarf with which she had strangled Gloria. I made her fetch it.
“I stood behind her with the scarf around her neck and strangled her. It seemed right that she should die by the very scarf with which she killed my Gloria. I got into my wheelchair, slung her dead body over my knees, and went out to the garage. Why didn’t I take one of my own cars? I didn’t want to muck them with her filthy body. I crammed her in the boot. I had to break her legs with a tyre iron so that she would fit.
“I was going to dump her on the moors but her wee car couldn’t cope with going off-road, and then I remembered the recycling place and thought it fitting she should end up with all the other rubbish.”
He fell silent.
“I will type out a statement for you to sign,” said Hamish. “You will now be locked in your room until reinforcements arrive from Strathbane. Charlie, go ahead and search for that gun.”
“He won’t find it,” said Harrison. “I left it in the safe in the hunting box.”
To Hamish’s relief, they made their way to Harrison’s room without encountering anyone. Harrison gave Hamish the statement from Helen. Hamish locked him in, pocketed the key, then went back to the office and called Jimmy.
The colonel wondered what was going on. He went to the office and peered through the glass panels. He could see Hamish and Charlie sitting there. He asked the night porter where Mr. Harrison was, and was told he was in his room.
He knocked at the door and called, “Percy! Have you gone to bed?”
There was a silence and then Harrison’s voice came from just behind the door. “The door’s locked,” he said, “and I could murder a whisky and soda.”
“I’ll have it open in a minute,” called the colonel. “We use that room for friends. I keep a key under this big vase outside the door. People are always losing that key.”
He opened the door. “I’ll get you a drink from the bar. Won’t take a moment.”
The colonel felt that Hamish Macbeth was cutting him out from the investigation. He hurried to the bar and shouted for a whisky and soda.
When he got back to Harrison’s room, the door stood open but there was no sign of the old man. The colonel hurried to the office. “Do you know where Percy is?” he demanded.
“He is locked in his room, waiting to be taken off to Strathbane,” said Hamish.
“What! Why?”
“He has confessed to the murder of Helen Mackenzie and given me a statement from Helen Mackenzie where she states she was responsible for the other murders.”
“But I unlocked the door for him,” wailed the colonel.
Hamish and Charlie rushed out of the office. To their demands, the night porter said that Mr. Harrison in his wheelchair had gone out of the hotel.
Percy Harrison bowled along the road towards Lochdubh in his wheelchair. It was a balmy night with a small moon riding high overhead. He reached the humpbacked bridge and stopped.
The river was in full spate because of all the melting snow coming down from the mountains. The water roared and sparkled in the moonlight. He heaved himself out of his wheelchair, wincing as the pain from his back shot down through his legs. Gasping, he clung to the parapet. Far behind him, he heard the wail of sirens.
He leaned over the parapet and gazed hypnotically down at the racing foaming water.
As Hamish and Charlie rushed down to the bridge, Harrison gave his crippled body one monumental heave and plunged down into the river.
He suddenly decided he did not want to die. There was no death penalty. He struggled and fought as the strong current sent him tumbling down into the loch and pulled his body under.
Hamish ran down to the shore and stripped down to his underwear, wading into the loch. He began to swim towards where he had seen Harrison disappear. He dived and dived again, searching in the blackness until his fingers grabbed hold of cloth. He hauled the body of Harrison to the surface and dragged it ashore and set about trying to pump the water out of the man’s lungs.
But there was no sign of life. Harrison’s eyes revealed no life at all, only the reflection of the stars above, causing a sort of false intelligence.
Hamish Macbeth was in disgrace. He began to feel like the murderer himself as the accusations from Daviot and Jimmy went on and on. Hamish could only be thankful that no one had been able to find Blair.
First Hamish was questioned at the hotel and then taken off to Strathbane with Charlie, where they were interrogated separately. Why was it, demanded Daviot, that two police officers locked up a confessed murderer and did not put a guard at the door?
On and on it went, all night long, until Jimmy took pity on Hamish. “Look, sir,” he said to Daviot, “the media are going to give you a lot of kudos for solving the case. There isn’t going to be a court case so it’s best to leave Macbeth out of it. Just say the case is solved and that you have a taped and written confession and don’t say how you came by them.”
Daviot brightened. “Do you agree to that, Macbeth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, well, now. I may have been a bit hard on you.” He turned to a police officer posted by the door. “I think we could do with some coffee here and some Tunnock’s tea cakes.”
; When the coffee and cakes arrived, Daviot continued. “So. Why on earth did you think of Harrison?”
“Grief for a dead son,” said Hamish. “I was sure Helen was the murderer and if Harrison thought she had murdered his son, he might take revenge.” Hamish decided not to tell the superintendent about being overheard accusing Helen of the murders.
“I am sure we would have forensic evidence eventually,” said Daviot, who had such faith in DNA and forensics that he had quite forgotten that police were supposed to use their brains and intuition.
Hamish and Charlie eventually returned to Lochdubh, agreeing to meet at the station at four in the afternoon when Daviot was to hold a press conference. Charlie went to the hotel and to his apartment, where he found an angry colonel waiting for him. The colonel’s dreams of being Poirot had been shattered and he blamed Hamish for keeping him out of the investigation.
“I don’t blame you, Charlie,” said the colonel. “You have to follow orders. But that lazy long drip of nothing deliberately kept all the investigation to himself.”
Charlie opened his mouth to say that Hamish was a police officer and the colonel had no standing whatsoever, but diplomatically remained silent to let, as he thought, the wee man get it out of his system.
Hamish was chased along the waterfront by the press, who had gathered at the bridge when he drove up. He dived into the station and ignored the batterings on the door.
He awoke later and shaved and dressed again. The press had given up, no doubt having gone to Strathbane for the press conference. Charlie arrived and they went into the living room and settled down to watch the conference on television.
Daviot, tailored and barbered, was flanked on one side by Jimmy and on the other by a grinning, smirking Blair.
He made a statement saying that Mr. Harrison before his suicide had confessed to the murder of Helen Mackenzie. Mr. Harrison had found out that Helen Mackenzie had murdered his son and so he had taken his revenge after forcing her to write a signed statement.
