Death of a Celebrity

by Beaton, M. C.

  ‘She drags Crystal out and pushes her into the front seat and then arranges the suicide and goes about her interviewing. She must have got a shock when Mary Hendry told her she had seen her. Mary must have found it a relief after all this time to be able to confide in a fellow murderer. We’ll never know exactly, but to my mind, that’s probably the way it happened.’

  Carson surveyed him. ‘I went through all your notes again, Hamish. Before, I could understand you wanting to live here. Nice, simple life. But there’s a nasty picture comes out, of brutal marriage, petty crime, and nasty little secrets. It’s no different from Strathbane, really.’

  ‘There are right nice people here,’ said Hamish defensively.

  Carson gave him a sly smile. ‘Your girlfriend’s a fine lassie.’

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend.’

  ‘Why not? Taken a vow of celibacy?’

  ‘Och, I’m off women at the moment.’

  ‘The trouble about being off women,’ said Carson, ‘is that when a stunner comes along, you never even notice her.’

  ‘You speak from experience?’

  ‘I was getting over an affair away back when. I said I’d never look at another woman again. But I had to take someone to the police ball in Inverness, so I asked a neighbour’s daughter, Anna. I didn’t really notice her, until all the other fellows at the ball seemed fair taken with her. That opened my eyes. She’s now my wife and we’ve been happily married for twenty years. Imagine if I had let such a chance slip!’

  ‘So you’re going back to Inverness.’

  ‘Yes.’ He drew out a card. ‘That’s my home address and telephone number. If you ever feel like coming down to see us, you’d get a right welcome.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So am I forgiven?’

  ‘Och, yes. We just have to forgive ourselves.’

  Carson drained his glass and stood up. ‘Take my advice and don’t let that lassie get away.’

  When he had gone, Hamish pulled forward a copy of the Highland Times. He wondered how Elspeth’s horoscopes were getting on. ‘Libra,’ he read. ‘There are none so blind as cannot see. You are at a crossroads in your life. One road leads to romance and companionship, the other to solitary loneliness. Which will you take?’

  The trouble was, thought Hamish, that he had been pushing Elspeth away because he kept imagining commitment and marriage. There had been no reason to be so heavy. Nothing to stop him having a light and enjoyable romance and seeing where it led.

  He went through to the bedroom and laid out his best suit. Then he had a long hot bath and washed and dried his red hair until it shone with purple lights. He dressed carefully, patted Lugs, and went along to Patel’s where he bought a large box of chocolates.

  He then headed for Elspeth’s flat. He was nearly there when under the greenish pools of light cast by the lamps on the waterfront, he saw her walking toward him. She was on the arm of George Earle. They were laughing together. George’s face was radiant. They had not seen him.

  Hamish leapt over the nearest garden hedge and crouched down. ‘Come on, Elspeth,’ he heard George say. ‘What about coming back to Inverness? You could maybe get a job on the Courier.’

  ‘I might at that,’ Elspeth replied. ‘This is a bit of a dead-alive hole. Nothing ever happens here.’

  Except two murders, thought Hamish bitterly.

  A voice behind him made him jump. ‘What are you doing in my garden, Hamish Macbeth!’

  Nessie Currie stood looking down at him, her arms folded across her aproned chest.

  Hamish straightened up and handed her the large box of chocolates. ‘I wanted to surprise you. These are for you.’

  ‘Oh, Hamish. Thank you. I never guessed. I mean, an old woman like me. Mind you, there was this interesting article in Elle magazine about summer-winter relationships . . .’

  ‘Nessie!’ called her sister. ‘What is happening out there, out there?’

  ‘Nothing,’ called Nessie. She winked at Hamish and smiled roguishly. ‘Let it be our secret.’

  Hamish let out a squawk of alarm and jumped back over the hedge and headed away as fast as he could.

  He went straight to the Brodies’ cottage. Angela let him in. ‘What’s up, Hamish? You’re all flustered. Come in.’

  ‘You’ve got to help me, Angela. I’m in a right mess.’

  He followed her into the kitchen and told her about his meeting with Nessie Currie. Angela laughed until the tears streamed down her cheeks.

  When she had finished laughing, Hamish said, ‘How do I get out of it?’

  ‘I don’t think this Elspeth is having a romance with this George person. Yes, he’s staying with her, but she’s got a female friend staying there as well. I would watch until he leaves and then go and tell Elspeth what happened. Ask her to look like your girlfriend to help you out. That way Nessie will feel she’s been jilted for a young woman, and as she thinks you’re a Lothario anyway, she’ll only be nasty for a bit. Then with Elspeth playing at your girlfriend, you’ll get to know her better and it might turn into the real thing.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘His car’s a Volvo, parked outside her flat. I’ll let you know if I see him leave.’

  Angela phoned at lunchtime the following day to say that she had just seen George loading an overnight bag into the Volvo and drive off. He had Elspeth’s girlfriend with him.

  Hamish was about to leave the police station when he saw Nessie heading purposefully in his direction. He ran up the back way, vaulting over dry stone walls, across muddy fields, and so in a large circle and then back down into the village again.

  He ran to the newspaper office. Sam said that Elspeth was over in Drim, covering a concert, but was expected back at any moment.

  Hamish waited and waited. The light was fading fast. The sun went down about two in the afternoon, now the winter nights had set in.

  At last he saw her car driving up outside and rushed out to meet her.

  ‘Hamish,’ said Elspeth. ‘Are you waiting for me?’

  ‘Yes, I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Can it wait until I’ve typed out my report?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll wait for you. Don’t be long.’

  Hamish sat down in the reception area of the newspaper office. It was great to finally take action. Time to go on living. After an hour, she came out. ‘Now what is it?’

  ‘Let’s walk a bit and I’ll explain.’

  They went outside. There was a full moon, and the black sky was thick with stars.

  ‘It’s like this, Elspeth,’ said Hamish, stopping and looking down at her.

  ‘You’re so serious. Not another murder?’

  ‘God forbid. No, I’ve done something daft. You see . . .’

  ‘Hamish!’ cooed a voice.

  He stiffened. There was Nessie Currie leering up at him. ‘I left a casserole for you on the kitchen step . . . darling,’ she said. ‘Come along.’

  Elspeth stared at Hamish.

  ‘Can’t it wait, Nessie?’ he said desperately.

  ‘No, come quickly before Jessie sees us.’ She hooked a surprisingly powerful arm in his and began to drag him away.

  Hamish twisted his head back and looked at Elspeth.

  ‘Hamish Macbeth,’ she said clearly, ‘you’re weird.’

  If you enjoyed Death of a Celebrity, read on for the first chapter of the next book in the Hamish Macbeth series . . .

  DEATH of a

  VILLAGE

  Chapter One

  In all my travels I never met with any one Scotchman but what was a man of sense. I believe everybody of that country that has any, leaves it as fast as they can.

  – Francis Lockier

  The way propaganda works, as every schoolboy knows, is that if you say the same thing over and over again, lie or not, people begin to believe it.

  Hamish Macbeth, police constable of the village of Lochdubh and its surroundings, had been until recently a happy, contented, unambitious man
. This was always regarded, by even the housebound and unsuccessful, as a sort of mental aberration. And he had been under fire for a number of years and from a number of people to pull his socks up, get a life, move on, get a promotion, and forsake his lazy ways. Until lately, all comments had slid off him. That was, until Elspeth Grant, local reporter, joined the chorus. It was the way she laughed at him with a sort of affectionate contempt as he mooched around the village that got under his skin. Her mild amazement that he did not want to ‘better himself, added on to all the other years of similar comments, finally worked on him like the end result of a propaganda war and he began to feel restless and discontented.

  Had he had any work to do apart from filing sheep-dip papers and ticking off the occasional poacher, Elspeth’s comments might not have troubled him. And Elspeth was attractive, although he would not admit it to himself. He felt he had endured enough trouble from women to last him a lifetime.

  He began to watch travel shows on television and to imagine himself walking on coral beaches or on high mountains in the Himalayas. He fretted over the fact that he had even taken all his holidays in Scotland.

  One sunny morning, he decided it was time he got back on his beat, which covered a large area of Sutherland. He decided to visit the village of Stoyre up on the west coast. It was more of a hamlet than a village. No crime ever happened there. But, he reminded himself, a good copper ought to check up on the place from time to time.

  After a winter of driving rain and a miserable spring, a rare period of idyllic weather had arrived in the Highlands. Tall twisted mountains swam in a heat haze. The air through the open window of the police Land Rover was redolent with smells of wild thyme, salt, bell heather, and peat smoke. He took a deep breath and felt all his black discontentment ebb away. Damn Elspeth! This was the life. He drove steadily down a winding single-track road to Stoyre.

  Tourists hardly ever visited Stoyre. This seemed amazing on such a perfect day, when the village’s cluster of whitewashed houses lay beside the deep blue waters of the Atlantic. There was a little stone harbour where three fishing boats bobbed lazily at anchor. Hamish parked in front of the pub, called the Fisherman’s Arms. He stepped down from the Land Rover. His odd-looking dog, Lugs, scrambled down as well.

  Hamish looked to right and left. The village seemed deserted. It was very still, unnaturally so. No children cried, no snatches of radio music drifted out from the cottages, no one came or went from the small general stores next to the pub.

  Lugs bristled and let out a low growl. ‘Easy, boy,’ said Hamish. He looked up the hill beyond the village to where the graveyard lay behind a small stone church. Perhaps there was a funeral. But he could see no sign of anyone moving about.

  ‘Come on, boy,’ he said to his dog. He pushed open the door of the pub and went inside. The pub consisted of a small whitewashed room with low beams on the ceiling. A few wooden tables scarred with cigarette burns were dotted about. There was no one behind the bar.

  ‘Anyone home?’ called Hamish loudly.

  To his relief there came the sound of someone moving in the back premises. A thickset man entered through a door at the back of the bar. Hamish recognized Andy Crummack, the landlord and owner.

  ‘How’s it going, Andy?’ asked Hamish. ‘Everybody dead?’

  ‘It iss yourself, Hamish. What will you be having?’

  ‘Just a tonic water.’ Hamish looked round the deserted bar. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘It’s aye quiet this time o’ day.’ Andy poured a bottle of tonic water into a glass.

  ‘Slainte!’ said Hamish. ‘Are you having one?’

  ‘Too early. If ye don’t mind, I’ve got stock to check.’ Andy made for the door behind the bar.

  ‘Hey, wait a minute, Andy. I havenae been in Stoyre for a while but I’ve never seen the place so dead.’

  ‘We’re quiet folks, Hamish.’

  ‘And nothing’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing. Now, if ye don’t mind . . .’

  The landlord disappeared through the door.

  Hamish drank the tonic water and then pushed back his peaked cap and scratched his fiery hair. Maybe he was imagining things. He hadn’t visited Stoyre for months. The last time had been in March when he’d made a routine call. He remembered people chatting on the waterfront and this pub full of locals.

  He put his glass on the bar and went out into the sunlight. The houses shone white in the glare and the gently heaving blue water had an oily surface.

  He went into the general store. ‘Morning, Mrs MacBean,’ he said to the elderly woman behind the counter. ‘Quiet today. Where is everyone?’

  ‘They’ll maybe be up at the kirk.’

  ‘What! On a Monday? Is it someone’s funeral?’

  ‘No. Can I get you anything, Mr Macbeth?’

  Hamish leaned on the counter. ‘Come on. You can tell me,’ he coaxed. ‘What’s everyone doing at the church on a Monday?’

  ‘We are God-fearing folk in Stoyre,’ she said primly, ‘and I’ll ask you to remember that.’

  Baffled, Hamish walked out of the shop and was starting to set off up the hill when the church doors opened and people started streaming out. Most were dressed in black as if for a funeral.

  He stood in the centre of the path as they walked down towards him. He hailed people he knew. ‘Morning, Jock . . . grand day, Mrs Nisbett,’ and so on. But the crowd parted as they reached him and silently continued on their way until he was left standing alone.

  He walked on towards the church and round to the manse at the side with Lugs at his heels. The minister had just reached his front door. He was a new appointment, Hamish noticed, a thin nervous man with a prominent Adam’s apple, and his black robes were worn and dusty. He had sparse ginger hair, weak eyes and a small pursed mouth.

  ‘Morning,’ said Hamish. ‘I am Hamish Macbeth, constable at Lochdubh. You are new to here?’

  The minister reluctantly faced him. ‘I am Fergus Mackenzie,’ he said in a lilting Highland voice.

  ‘You seem to be doing well,’ remarked Hamish. ‘Church full on a Monday morning.’

  ‘There is a strong religious revival here,’ said Fergus. ‘Now, if you don’t mind . . .’

  ‘I do mind,’ said Hamish crossly. ‘This village has changed.’

  ‘It has changed for the better. A more Godfearing community does not exist anywhere else in the Highlands.’ And with that the minister went into the manse and slammed the door in Hamish’s face.

  Becoming increasingly irritated, Hamish retreated back to the waterfront. It was deserted again. He thought of knocking on some doors to find out if there was any other answer to this strange behaviour apart from a religious revival and then decided against it. He looked back up the hill to where a cottage stood near the top. It was the holiday home of a retired army man, Major Jennings, an Englishman. Perhaps he might be more forthcoming. He plodded back up the hill, past the church, and knocked on the major’s door. Silence greeted him. He knew the major lived most of the year in the south of England. Probably not arrived yet. Hamish remembered he usually came north for a part of the summer.

  When he came back down from the hill, he saw that people were once more moving about. There were villagers in the shop and villagers on the waterfront. This time they gave him a polite greeting. He stopped one of them, Mrs Lyle. ‘Is anything funny going on here?’ he asked.

  She was a small, round woman with tight grey curls and glasses perched on the end of her nose. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s an odd atmosphere and then you’ve all been at the kirk and it isn’t even Sunday.’

  ‘It is difficult to explain to such as you, Hamish Macbeth,’ she said. ‘But in this village we take our worship of the Lord seriously and don’t keep it for just the one day.’

  I’m a cynic, thought Hamish as he drove off. Why should I find it all so odd? He knew that in some of the remote villages a good preacher was still a bigger draw than anything on
television. Mr Mackenzie must be a powerful speaker.

  When he returned to Lochdubh, Hamish found all the same that the trip to Stoyre had cheered him up. The restlessness that had plagued him had gone. He whistled as he prepared food for himself and his dog, and then carried his meal on a tray out to the front garden, where he had placed a table with an umbrella over it. Why dream of cafés in France when he had everything here in Lochdubh?

  He had just finished a meal of fried haggis, sausage and eggs when a voice hailed him. ‘Lazing around again, Hamish?’

  The gate to the front garden opened and Elspeth Grant came in. She was wearing a brief tube top which showed her midriff, a small pair of denim shorts, and her hair had been tinted aubergine. She pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.

  ‘The trouble with aubergine,’ said Hamish, ‘is that it chust doesnae do.’

  ‘Doesn’t do what?’ demanded Elspeth.

  ‘Anything for anyone. It’s like the purple lipstick or the black nail varnish. Anything that’s far from an original colour isn’t sexy.’

  ‘And what would you know about anything sexy?’

  ‘I am a man and I assume you mean to attract the opposite sex.’

  ‘Women dress and do their hair for themselves these days.’

  ‘Havers.’

  ‘It’s true, Hamish. You’ve been living in this time warp for so long that you just don’t know what’s what. Anyway, I’m bored. There’s really nothing to report until the Highland Games over at Braikie and that’s a week away.’

  ‘I might have a wee something for you. I’ve just been over at Stoyre. There’s a religious revival there. They were all at the kirk this morning. Seems they’ve got a new minister, a Mr Mackenzie. I was thinking he must be a pretty powerful preacher.’

  ‘Not much, but something,’ said Elspeth. ‘I’ll try next Sunday.’

  ‘The way they’re going on, you may not need to wait that long. They’ve probably got a service every day.’