Hamish Macbeth Omnibus

by M C Beaton

  Hamish let out a little sigh of relief. Helen Ross. Not Jenny. He would worry about Helen Ross later, but right at that moment he was glad it hadn’t been Jenny.

  ‘Was that the only time they stayed here?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, definitely. I wouldn’t forget the likes of her in a hurry.’

  Hamish asked more questions and then said, ‘Oh, while I’m here, I would like to reserve one of your best rooms for Friday night for a Mr Diarmuid Sinclair.’

  ‘And who’s he?’ asked the manager. ‘I like to keep one of the best rooms free in case one of the laird’s friends wants to stay overnight. The laird is very fond of my hotel.’

  Hamish looked at the hotel owner in amazement. ‘You mean to say you haff never heard of Mr Diarmuid Sinclair?’

  ‘No, I can’t say I have,’ said Mr Gaunt.

  Hamish laughed. ‘He’ll walk in here looking like an old crofter and sounding like an old crofter and no one would ever guess he made his millions as a young man in the South African gold mines.’

  Mr Gaunt pretended to look carefully at the register. ‘Why!’ he said, ‘we have our best suite free. It used to be a lounge but we turned it into our best suite with hall and bathroom. We have had royalty there.’

  ‘Is that a fact,’ said Hamish. ‘Who?’

  ‘When this was a private house, the queen paid a visit to Mrs Crummings, the then owner. Mrs Crummings was a retired housekeeper from Storroch Castle. The queen took tea in that very bedroom, although, of course, it was not a bedroom then.’

  ‘My, my,’ said Hamish. ‘Queen Elizabeth herself.’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Mr Gaunt. ‘Queen Mary.’

  ‘I’m thinking that would be long before you were born,’ said Hamish.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the hotel owner testily, ‘but nonetheless, do assure Mr Sinclair that we have had royalty here.’

  Hamish was escorted out of the hotel by Mr Gaunt, a friend of the famous Mr Diarmuid Sinclair meriting such distinguished attention. He walked along the river bank. He wondered whether he should warn Diarmuid that he had lied about him but decided against it. The sun was still sparkling on the water, but the wind had become chill and the sky was turning a murky colour.

  He decided he would try to see Helen Ross alone before he said anything to Blair. Blair would not respect Jamie Ross’s feelings but would accuse Helen in front of her husband of having spent the night with Mainwaring. Hamish sat down on a bench and stared at the water. Now that he was away from the atmosphere of Cnothan, strong motives for murder leapt into his mind. Jamie, for all his pleasant personality, was a hard-nosed businessman and probably had a ruthless streak. In order to succeed in the Highlands and cope with the hellish bureaucracy of crofting laws, landlords, factors, environmentalists, and God knows how many obstructive quangos, you had to be ruthless. And how would such a ruthless man take the infidelity of his wife? By ruining his business? Hamish shook his head, and a passing woman gave him a clear berth. Then there was Mrs Mainwaring. It was her money Mainwaring was using to wine and dine Helen Ross. Agatha Mainwaring was a powerful woman who drank too much. What if it was not a cold-blooded, premeditated crime, but done by someone who had found the incomer by the lobster tank, interfering as usual and poking his nose in where he had no right to be, and had struck him a blow that had broken his neck and toppled him into the tank? Maybe whoever it was did not know Mainwaring was dead but thought that a few nibbles by the lobsters would serve him right, and had run away, only to return later to find Mainwaring had turned into a skeleton. Had the call that had sent him rushing off thirty miles to the Angler’s Rest been made to keep him out of the way? Or had it been another practical joke to keep him from interfering with the locals’ Saturday-night drinking pleasures? The witchcraft scare had not been connected to the murder. Or had it?

  Land greed was a powerful force in the Highlands. The two crofters, Birrell and Macdonald, could have put their daughters up to the scare, roping in Watson’s daughter as well in order to confuse the issue.

  On the other hand, it could have been a practical joke that had gone wrong.

  Say Alistair Gunn, not knowing his own strength, had pushed Mainwaring, and Mainwaring had struck his head on the side of the tank and broken his neck.

  Or there was Harry Mackay. He had been grossly insulted by Mainwaring. ‘Couldn’t even get a fuck in a brothel,’ or something like that, Mainwaring had said. Mackay had been furious. The insult to Mackay’s masculinity might refer to something in the past. Had Mackay been married, engaged, and had Mainwaring with his uncanny way with women taken some female away from Mackay?

  And Mrs Struthers? What of her? It was all very well to laugh at the idea that a minister’s wife would turn to murder just because someone had humiliated her and jeered at her cooking skill. But Cnothan was such a dark and twisted sort of place, who knew what went on under the most respectable façade?

  Hamish looked at his watch. There was a train due to leave at noon. He walked in the direction of the station. A poster caught his eye. There was a rerun of Whiskey Galore on at the cinema.

  Damn Cnothan and damn Blair thought Hamish.

  He headed rapidly in the direction of the cinema.

  Ian Gibb went down to meet the evening train in the hope that Hamish might be on it. He was smarting with humiliation. The Daily Recorder in London had asked him for a story and he had duly sent one. It had appeared on the front page but under someone else’s name. When he had phoned the news editor to complain, the news editor had pointed out that the reporter who had been blessed with a byline had deserved it, for he had had quite a job translating Ian’s prose. Ian had hotly demanded an example. ‘Well,’ the news editor had said, ‘take this line, for instance. “Said forty-eight-year-old electrician, Mr Joseph Noble, of 22 Main Street, Cnothan, yesterday laughingly, but with tears behind the laughter, ‘This place will never be the same,’” For God’s sake, sonny, you’re not sending stuff to the local rag, you know.’

  Ian had slammed down the phone. What had been up with that bit about Mr Noble? They hadn’t even used it. He thirsted for another scoop . . . something that would make them sit up. Blair was hiding something. Forensic had been crawling all over Jamie Ross’s place. Was that where Mainwaring had been last seen? But how had Mainwaring been reduced to a skeleton? And why did Blair get so red-faced and violent every time he asked if they had discovered the reason? Hamish might know.

  Also, Ian smelled a cover-up somewhere. If it hadn’t been for that bomb in Downing Street, the media would still be asking questions and more questions.

  The train pulled in. Ian saw Hamish descending from a carriage at the end and ran to meet him.

  ‘Not another murder?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘No, it’s just that . . .’ Ian launched into a long and bitter complaint against the Daily Recorder and the way one of the biggest murder mysteries of the century was being passed over.

  Hamish thought hard as Ian talked. The lobster death could not be hushed up forever. Sharp interest would return and that interest would never fade. Television crews even a year later would return to do documentaries of what had happened to Mainwaring. So what if the upper class of London had a fright? It would make screaming headlines, but at least it might mean a murderer did not remain at large. If the press became pushy again, then Blair would be made to work.

  ‘There is a story,’ said Hamish cautiously, ‘and you’ve just been talking about it.’

  ‘What?’ asked Ian eagerly.

  ‘Well, the fact that this is a dreadful and grotesque murder and there’s an uncanny silence about it. Blair sits around the Anstey Hotel watching television when he ought to be interviewing people again and again. Go round the locals and gossip to them and get them to voice outrage.’

  A slow smile dawned on Ian’s face. ‘Thanks, Hamish. I’ll start right away.’

  ‘Another word of advice,’ said Hamish. ‘When you’re writing for a paper like, say, the Daily Recorder, read a
copy o’ the damn thing first and carefully copy the style. It’s no use writing a piece in the style of The Scotsman, say, when you want it in one of the tabloids. And it’s no use writing a piece for the tabloids as if you are writing for a local paper. Have you got your car?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ian, waving towards a hand-painted primrose-yellow Morris Minor with a 1950s licence plate.

  ‘Then drop me off at Cnothan Game.’

  Only half listening to the reporter as they drove along, Hamish tried to think of ways to get Helen Ross on her own. He knew his own liking and admiration of Jamie Ross were not allowing him to think clearly. But if there were more achievers like Jamie in the Highlands of Scotland, then the population figures might rise again. As it was, the young people drifted away to the cities, the houses and cottages stood empty, occasionally filled by an influx of underachievers who chattered on about the quality of life, by which they meant they could live on the dole while persuading themselves they were pioneers in the outback of the British Isles.

  Ian dropped him in the yard of Cnothan Game and drove off. Hamish walked up to the door of the bungalow and rang the bell.

  Helen Ross herself answered the door. She was wearing a black wool dress with enormous shoulder pads and jet-embroidered lapels, the sort of forties style worn by Joan Collins. Heavy antique earrings of Whitby jet emphasized the startling whiteness of her skin.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, and swayed off in front of him. He followed her into the sitting-room, automatically ducking his head as he walked under the chandelier.

  ‘Jamie not at home?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘No, he’s over on the west coast, seeing to the catch. Sit down. Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Perhaps later,’ Hamish sat down in one of the white leather armchairs and looked at Helen Ross curiously. She gave him a vaguely inquiring smile.

  ‘I’m glad I found you alone,’ said Hamish, and then he plunged right in. ‘About a month ago, you and William Mainwaring booked into the Glen Abb Hotel in Inverness.’

  Helen Ross lit a cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke and squinted at Hamish through it.

  ‘So you found out about that,’ she said. It was not a question.

  ‘Would you like to tell me about it?’ Hamish waited while Helen placidly smoked. Her whole body appeared relaxed, and her long, long legs in the sheerest of black stockings were crossed at the ankle.

  ‘Not really,’ she sighed. ‘But, if I have the right of it, it’s either you or that pig Blair?’

  Hamish nodded.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you how it came about. I get pretty lonely here. Jamie’s wrapped up in his work. I met him after I got my degree at St Andrew’s University. I was doing summer work, waitressing at the Anstey Hotel. We fell in love and got married and struggled along, being very happy just trying to make ends meet. Then Jamie thought up the idea for this business. It was very exciting. He worked at it night and day, like a man possessed. Then it succeeded, then we got rich, and then I got bored. End of story.’

  The gentle, lilting Highland voice fell silent.

  Hamish cleared his throat. ‘So to relieve that boredom, you decided to have an affair with William Mainwaring?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that at all. He got in the way of calling around when Jamie was over at the west coast. He talked about books, paintings, world affairs, all the sort of things I used to talk about to my friends at university. He made me feel young again. Of course, it was all intellectual crap, now I come to think of it, but it was heady stuff. The conversation up here is about sheep, the weather, the church, and sheep. I was easily talked into going to Inverness with him. Jamie was to be away at the Land Court in Edinburgh, fighting another battle. William said we would stay at the Glen Abb – separate rooms – and have a slap-up meal and we could talk and talk. That was what was so seductive. Well, we were out of Cnothan and there we were in Inverness, and William began to seem to me like a prosy bore who knew a little about everything and not much about anything. Then I found he had just booked the one room. I told him I was leaving. He said if I didn’t spend the night with him, he would tell Jamie. So I said, “Tell Jamie,” and I walked out in the middle of the night and found myself another hotel.’

  ‘Which one?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Not really a hotel, a boarding-house near the station, Mrs Parker’s.’

  ‘And what name did you check in under?’

  ‘My own,’ said Helen.

  ‘And she will be able to vouch that you were there?’

  ‘Of course she will. I was her only guest.’

  ‘And did Mainwaring tell your husband about the trip to Inverness?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Hamish curiously.

  ‘Jamie’s got a violent temper. He’d have broken Mainwaring’s neck.’

  ‘Then maybe he did.’

  ‘He couldn’t have,’ said Helen, raising thin eyebrows in amazement. ‘He was in Inverness with me at the wedding.’

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘No, he disappeared for a long time to sober up, but not long enough to get to Cnothan and back.’

  ‘Is he often drunk?’

  ‘He gets drunk on Hogmanay and then maybe occasionally at a party. The rest of the time, he hardly drinks at all. He likes coffee more than anything.’

  Hamish sat in silence, thinking. Helen Ross went to the drinks trolley and mixed herself a gin and tonic. ‘Sure you won’t have anything, Constable?’

  ‘No, thank you. What are you going to do now? asked Hamish. ‘I’ll need to put a report in to Blair. I can’t keep this quiet.’

  ‘I suppose you must,’ said Helen. She sat down and crossed her legs. Her skirt, Hamish realized for the first time, was slit up the side and now exposed an expanse of long smooth stocking-leg and black stocking-top. Hamish wondered whether the leg show was deliberate. He could not imagine Helen Ross not being aware at any time of one inch of her body or dress.

  ‘How will Jamie react?’

  ‘I’ll have to tell Jamie first. It might not be a bad thing. He’ll learn what boredom can drive me to do. I’ve begged him to let me get a job, but he says the locals would sneer at him and say he’s such a miser that he has to send his wife out to work.’

  ‘I didn’t think he would care what they thought.’

  ‘Not in general. But he likes me here in the house, waiting for him. He’ll be in such a rage. How boring.’

  ‘He won’t hurt you?’ asked Hamish anxiously.

  ‘Spoil the decoration he’s paid so much for?’ Helen laughed. ‘I’m part of the show, along with those ghastly white leather chairs and the white Mercedes.’

  ‘How do you mean, paid so much for?’ asked Hamish sharply.

  ‘The clothes, man, the clothes. This little number cost five hundred pounds and it’s only one of many. My only enjoyment in life is buying clothes, and Jamie gladly pays for anything I want. He gives me everything except sex and company.’

  Hamish shifted uncomfortably. The room was suffocatingly hot and suddenly charged with a new atmosphere. His collar felt tight and his skin itched.

  He rose to go. Helen Ross rose as well and came to stand in front of him. In her high heels, she was as tall as he.

  ‘Stay a little and have a drink,’ she murmured. One hand with its long red-painted fingernails held the skirt of her dress open, her eyes dropping so that Hamish looked down as well.

  ‘No, I have to be going,’ said Hamish. His voice sounded strange in his own ears, all squeaky and afraid. She wound her arms round his neck and kissed him on the mouth. Hamish’s senses reeled. Before Jenny had come on the scene, he had been celibate for a long time. Now he dimly wondered how he had ever managed to survive.

  Helen’s mouth had moved to his ear and she started nibbling the lobe. Her voice then whispered, ‘Me going to Inverness with William has nothing to do with the case. You’ll forget about it. Won’t you?’

  Hamish pushed her away and strai
ghtened his tie. ‘No, Mrs Ross,’ he said. ‘I would like to help you, but I must put in my report.’

  For one moment a flicker of . . . venom? . . . flashed in the depths of her eyes, and then it was gone.

  When Hamish got outside a moment later, he gulped down great lungfuls of cold air. He set out to walk back to Cnothan.

  Jamie Ross arrived home an hour later.

  Helen Ross poured him a drink and then said, ‘Hamish Macbeth was here. He has found out about me going to Inverness with Mainwaring.’

  Jamie’s face darkened. ‘Is he going to put in a report?’

  Helen shrugged. ‘He says he’ll have to.’

  Jamie rounded on her. ‘Didn’t you try to shut him up, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Oh, I tried,’ said Helen. ‘Believe me, I tried. But he wasn’t buying any.’

  ‘Damn Macbeth to hell,’ said Jamie Ross.

  Chapter Eight

  Loaf, as I have loafed aforetime,

  Through the streets with tranquil mind,

  And a long-backed fancy-mongrel

  Trailing casually behind.

  – S. Calverley

  Hamish awoke the next morning in his own bed with Towser beside him. ‘Anything would be better than you,’ he said morosely, pushing the dog out of the bed. Towser usually lay across his master’s feet like a rug during the night, but had been recently banished from the bedroom.

  Hamish could have stayed the night with Jenny if he had wanted, but he had made the excuse that he would have to sit up late, typing out a report for Blair. Although this was true, he also did not want to get further involved until he decided whether his intentions were honourable or not.

  The weather forecast for the north of Scotland had been dreadful, but as if to prove the forecasters wrong, the sun blazed down outside.

  An hour later Hamish was about to descend on Blair with his report when the minister, Mr Struthers, called.