by M C Beaton
Police Constable Macbeth drove sedately out of the estate and along the road to Lochdubh. He pulled to the side of the road at the top of the hill overlooking the village, switched off the engine, and climbed out of the car.
A mist was rising from the loch below, lifting and falling. One minute the village lay in its neat two rows, and the next was blotted from view.
‘I hate that man!’ cried Hamish loudly. A startled sheep skittered off on its black legs.
He took a great gulp of fresh air. Hamish hardly ever lost his temper, but Blair’s dismissal of him from the case was infuriating. Hamish, in that brief moment, hated not only Blair but Priscilla Halburton-Smythe as well. She was nothing but a silly girl who had become engaged to a man simply because he was famous. She was not worth a single moment’s heartbreak. And let Blair solve the case if he could!
Hamish reminded himself fiercely that he had settled for a quiet life. He had had chances of promotion and had sidestepped them all, for he knew he would find life in a large town unpleasant. He would need to obey his superiors who might turn out to be like Blair. He loved his easy, lazy life and the beauty of the countryside. Apart from his hens and geese, he rented a piece of croft land behind the police station where he kept sheep. There was enough to be made on the side in Lockdubh, what with the egg money, the sale of lambs, and the money prizes he won at the various Highland games. Why should he throw it all away out of hurt pride – because a detective had insulted him and the daughter of the castle had made it obvious she enjoyed money and fame, even if that fame was only reflected glory?
His anger went as quickly as it had come, leaving him feeling tired and sad.
He climbed back in his car, stopping outside Lochdubh to give a lift to a sticky urchin who had wandered too far from home.
Once inside the police station, which had an office on one side, with one cell, and the living quarters on the other, he hung a notice on the door referring all inquiries to Strathbane police, and then went inside and firmly locked and bolted it.
The newspapers and television would be along soon, and Hamish knew that ordinary constables were not supposed to give statements to the press. It was easier to pretend he was not at home instead of having to open the door every five minutes to say, ‘No comment.’
He ate a late breakfast, and then, taking Towser, decided to walk about the village and make sure all was quiet. Murder at the castle should not distract him from more petty crimes. The crimes committed in the village were usually drunkenness, petty shoplifting, and wife-beating – or husband-beating. Drugs had not yet reached this remote part of north-west Scotland.
He went on his rounds, dropping into various cottages for cups of tea. Then he ambled along to the Lochdubh Hotel to pass the time of day with Mr Johnson, the hotel manager.
‘What’s this I’m hearing?’ said Mr Johnson, ushering Hamish into the gloom of the hotel office. ‘They’re saying it’s a murder up at Tommel.’
‘You get the news quickly,’ said Hamish.
‘It was that Jessie. Does she ever do any work? She’s always down in the village, mooning over that boyfriend of hers. She says the Mafia wasted Captain Bartlett – there was another American movie showing at the village hall the other night. The Godfather, I think it was.’
‘No, it wisnae the Mafia,’ said Hamish with a grin. ‘I won’t be having anything to do with the case. It’s that scunner Blair from Strathbane. He told me to push off.’
‘Blair doesn’t know his arse from his elbow,’ said Mr Johnson roundly. The bell rang on the reception desk outside. He hurried to answer it. Hamish listened, amused, to the sudden horrible refinement of the hotel manager’s accent. ‘Oh, yes, Major Finlayson, sir,’ twittered Mr Johnson. ‘We have a very good cellar, and Monsieur Pierre, our maître d’, will be delighted to discuss our wine list with you. Is modom well? Good, good. Grand day for the fishing, ha, ha.’
‘Silly old fart,’ said the manager, walking into the office and shutting the door. ‘I hate wine snobs.’
‘Who in the name o’ the wee man is Monsieur Pierre?’ asked Hamish.
‘Och, it’s Jimmy Cathcart from Glasgow. He thought it would look better if he pretended to be French. Mind you, when we get the French tourists, he says he’s American. Now, what about this murder, Hamish?’
Hamish looked hopefully towards the coffee machine in the corner.
Mr Johnson took the hint and poured him out a cup.
Hamish sat down, nursing his cup of coffee, and described his findings.
‘But you can’t just leave it there!’ exclaimed Mr Johnson when Hamish had finished.
‘It is not my murder. It is Blair’s.’
‘Good heavens! That man couldn’t find his own hands if they weren’t attached to his arms. Are you going to let a murderer roam around on the loose? He might murder again.’
‘It’s not my case,’ said Hamish stubbornly. He drank his coffee in one gulp and put the cup down on the desk. ‘To tell you the truth, I no longer care if the whole damn lot of them up at that castle drop dead tomorrow.’
Chapter Seven
… one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.
– Saki
By early evening, the mist had thickened. Hamish was able to make out some figures clustered around the outside of the police station. He quietly made his way around to the back door so as to avoid the gentlemen of the press.
The thick mist had blotted out all sound. Hamish fried a couple of herring for his dinner and gave Towser a bowl of Marvel Dog, a new dog food given to him free by the local shop to try out. Towser ate a mouthful and then tottered around the kitchen, making dismal retching sounds.
‘What a clown you are,’ said Hamish. ‘You know I brought home some liver just in case you didn’t like Marvel Dog. Sit yourself down until it’s cooked.’
He had been feeling calm and peaceful just before his return home, but as he lifted down the heavy frying pan – Towser liked his liver medium rare – he was overcome by another wave of sadness. Was this what the future held for him? Chatting away in the evenings to a spoilt mongrel?
There came a sharp, impatient knocking on the front door. Hamish hesitated. He began to wonder if his relative, Rory Grant, who worked in London for the Daily Chronicle, had perhaps been sent up to cover the murder. He should have phoned Rory, he thought. It was too early perhaps for the Fleet Street boys to have arrived, unless Blair had released the news very quickly and some of them had managed to fly up from London.
He put the pan on the stove and dumped the liver into it and then cautiously tiptoed his way to the front door. He pulled aside the lace curtain at the window at the side of the door. In the misty half-light, he could just make out the sharp features of Detective Jimmy Anderson, Blair’s underling.
Cursing his own curiosity, he unlocked the door. ‘Come in quickly,’ said Hamish. ‘I’ve been avoiding the press.’
‘They’ve had short shrift from Blair,’ said Anderson. ‘But headquarters in Strathbane phoned the news of the murder to the local paper after Blair told them about it. They’ll have phoned Fleet Street. The Scottish television stations are here and all the Scottish papers from Dumfries to John o’Groats. You’d think they’d never had a murder in Scotland before.’
‘It’s a rich-folks’ murder,’ said Hamish, ‘and that makes a world o’ difference. Come in.’
Anderson followed Hamish into the kitchen and stood watching as Hamish seized the frying pan and turned the liver over.
‘That smells good,’ said Anderson. ‘Sorry to interrupt your dinner.’
‘It’s no’ for me,’ said Hamish, blushing. ‘It’s fur ma dog.’
‘I bet ye buy it presents for its birthday,’ jeered Anderson.
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Hamish furiously, remembering with shame that he had bought Towser a new basket for his birthday just last month. ‘What brings you here?’
‘The fact is,’ said Anderson, ‘I could do
with a dram.’
‘Oh, aye? And you staying in splendour at Tommel Castle.’
‘I rang the bell to ask for a drink,’ said Anderson, his sharp blue eyes roaming about the kitchen as if searching for a whisky bottle, ‘and that berk, Jenkins, answered. “Police are not to ring bells for the servants,” he says. “I’ll remember that, mac,” says I. “Just fetch me a drink.” “Colonel Halburton-Smythe’s instructions,” says he, “but the officers of the law are not to imbibe intoxicating liquor while on duty and will take their meals in the servants’ hall.” I told thon old ponce where he could put his servants’ meals and he told the colonel, who told Blair, and Blair’s gone all creepy and told me I’d better take a walk until he calmed the colonel down.’
‘I might have something,’ said Hamish, piling the liver into Towser’s bowl. ‘Then again, I might not.’
‘I thought,’ said Anderson, staring at the ceiling, ‘that perhaps you might like to get a run-down on all the statements.’
‘I’m not on the case,’ said Hamish, ‘but come through to the living room and I’ll see what I can do.’
Hamish’s living room was not often used. It did not even boast a television set. Bookshelves lined the walls, and the mantelpiece was crammed with various trophies, which Anderson examined. ‘You seem to have won everything,’ he commented. ‘Hill running, clay-pigeon shooting, angling competition, even chess! Bring in much money?’
‘The hill running does, and the angling.’ said Hamish, ‘and sometimes the shooting if it’s at a big game fair. But often the prize is something like a salmon or a bottle of whisky.’
He took out a glass and began to fill it with whisky.
‘Steady on,’ said Anderson. ‘I’ll need some water in that.’
‘It’s watered already,’ said Hamish, ‘and don’t ask me why, for I cannae be bothered telling you.’ For although Hamish did not mind discussing the laird’s wife’s penchant for topping up the prize bottles of whisky with water with the locals or Priscilla, he had no intention of running down the good lady’s reputation to an outsider.
‘Here’s to you,’ said Anderson. ‘Round the wallies, round the gums, look out, stomach, here it comes.’
‘Chust so,’ said Hamish stolidly. He studied Anderson covertly. Anderson was a thin, restless man with oily fair hair and a discontented foxy face. Of the three, Blair, McNab, and Anderson, Hamish had, in the past, found Anderson the most approachable.
‘The last thing,’ said Anderson, ‘that I heard before I left was that forensics had taken a gun out of the gun room. It was a John Rigby. They’ve taken it back to Strathbane to double-check, but they’re sure as anything it was cleaned right after the murder. Could the murderer have switched cartridges, seeing as how Bartlett had a Purdey and he had a John Rigby?’
‘The Rigby’s a twelve-bore, isn’t it?’ asked Hamish.
Anderson nodded.
‘Any twelve-bore cartridge goes into any twelve-bore gun.’
‘How long would it take to clean a shotgun?’
‘About five minutes,’ said Hamish. ‘You put a little gun-cleaning fluid into each barrel and then you scrub the inside of each barrel with a phosphor-bronze brush. Then you put a patch on the jag – that’s a wee piece of flannelette on a rod sort of thing – and you push that through the barrels. If you’re doing the job properly, you finish it off with gun oil on a lamb’s-wool mop, go over the extractors with a toothbrush to remove any powder that may have got caught, and then go over the metal parts of the gun with an oily cloth. I suppose they’ve dusted the gun-cleaning equipment for prints?’
‘A set of gun-cleaning thingumajigs has gone, says the colonel. And it’ll not surprise you to learn there were no prints on the gun.’
‘Checked everyone’s clothes for oil?’
‘Not a sign of it. Even Pomfret’s clothes are clean, and you’d expect his shooting clothes would have some oil on them.’
‘I think our murderer must have been used to shooting,’ said Hamish cautiously.
‘Why? It doesn’t take much expertise to go right up to someone and blow a hole in his chest.’
‘Well,’ sighed Hamish, ‘here’s what I’m thinking. I don’t believe the murderer could have counted on the captain being conveniently at that fence and in the perfect position to fake a suicide. An amateur might just have loaded two cartridges into the gun before going out. A man used to shooting would automatically fill his pockets with cartridges. The murderer had enough cartridges with him to change his for the captain’s – I mean not only in the gun, but in the captain’s pockets as well. Anyway, we know how it was done. The question is – why? How well did they all know him?’
‘Oh, they all knew him, all right. Seems they’ve run into him at various house parties. Everyone very vague. Miss Smythe is the only one who’s definite in her statement. She said she met him two years ago when she and some of her friends went to the Highland Dragoons’ annual rifle shoot. She is also the only one who seems to have liked him.
‘Jessica Villiers and Diana Bryce came in to see Blair together. He told Jessica to go and Diana to stay. The girls exchanged sort of conspiratorial, warning looks. Diana starts patronizing Blair. “One meets the same people over and over again in our set, but I don’t suppose someone like you is aware of that” type of thing. Jessica is called in and says the same thing. Blair blows his top and starts bullying them and everyone else. Everyone clams up on the spot. Captain Bartlett could be offensive, they say, but not as offensive as some – meaning Blair, of course. Blair is also high-handed with the servants. Servants who might be the gossipy type clam up on the spot and play the old retainer bit.’
‘And who is the chief suspect?’ asked Hamish, rising and filling up Anderson’s glass.
‘Thanks. Well, the chief suspect is Jeremy Pomfret. He’s the one who had the bet with Bartlett.’
‘Dearie me,’ said Hamish. ‘Mr Pomfret has pots of money, and five thousand pounds to him would be like a five-pound note to me.’
‘Okay, Sherlock, who would you pick?’
‘I think there’s a lot of them with motives,’ said Hamish. ‘I was at a party at the castle the night before the shooting. One minute Vera Forbes-Grant was drooling over Bartlett, and the next, she’d flung her drink in his face. Jessica and Diana had their heads together and they were staring at the captain in hate and horror, as if they’d just learned something awful. Diana started to yak to me about how easy it is to die from an accident in the Highlands, and when I said I was the local bobby, she clammed up. I think Freddy Forbes-Grant knows his wife had an affair with Bartlett. I think Sir Humphrey Throgmorton has reason to hate Bartlett as well. The Helmsdales didn’t like him either. Henry Withering knew him. How well, I don’t know.
‘As for Jeremy Pomfret, he wanted me to come up to the castle and referee the shoot, but I had to tell him the colonel wouldnae stand for that. He didn’t trust Bartlett and he didn’t like him.’
‘What I don’t understand,’ said Anderson, ‘is that this house party is supposed to be so that the chosen few can meet the famous playwright. But most of them seem to have a grudge against Bartlett, and all seem to have known him. Weird that they should all end up at the same house party.’
‘Not really,’ said Hamish. ‘Diana was right about meeting the same people. These landed gentry only visit each other, you know, and there’s not that many folk this far north, so it stands to reason you’d end up running into the same people over and over again. I thought you would have known that.’
‘Not me,’ grinned Anderson. ‘You don’t often get crime in such elevated circles. The only highfalutin one I was ever on was that fishing one last year, but they were all visitors. I’m a town man, and there’s usually plenty in Strathbane to keep us busy, what with keeping an eye on thae Russians from the Eastern Bloc fleet and trying to smash the poaching gangs. We’ve got those big council estates and most of the folks are unemployed and as tight as ticks with booze from one week�
��s end to the other.’
‘What about the paraffin test?’ asked Hamish suddenly.
‘Oh, to see if anyone had fired a gun recently? They don’t use the paraffin test any more. They took swabs from everyone’s hands and they’ve taken them back to the lab for tests. But they’re pretty sure the murderer was wearing gloves.’
‘So you’re looking for the gloves?’
‘Everyone’s going to be up at dawn, combing the grounds,’ yawned Anderson. ‘Then we’re checking up on all the guests. We’ll soon be getting reports from all over. They’re a cagey lot. They must know we’ll find out all about them sooner or later, so you’d think they’d come clean.’
‘With someone like Chief Inspector Blair, it’s a pleasure not to help him in anything,’ said Hamish.
‘He’s not bad when you get to know him. He’s awf’y good at routine work. This is a bit out of his league.’
Hamish picked up the whisky bottle and put it away in a cupboard. Anderson cast a longing look after it before getting to his feet. ‘Will I pass on to Blair what you said about the motives?’ he asked.
Hamish thought of Blair, and then reminded himself severely there was a murderer at large. He shrugged. ‘Why not?’ he said.
‘I’ll drop along tomorrow evening,’ said Anderson, ‘and let you know how things are going.’
‘Aye, well, that would be grand,’ said Hamish reluctantly. He had a very human longing to leave Blair to his own devices and watch him make a muck of the case.
After Anderson had left, Hamish began to wonder if he would be any better than Blair at finding out who the murderer was. And the more he wondered, the more his curiosity took over from his hurt at Blair’s snub.
He went into his office. There would be no harm in making a few calls to various friends and relatives. Like many Highlanders, Hamish had relatives scattered all over the world, and he was thankful he still had a good few of the less ambitious ones in different parts of Scotland.
He walked over to the wall where there was a large faded map of the north of Scotland and gazed at the county of Caithness, finally pinpointing the Bryces’ and Villierses’ estates.
