by M C Beaton
At first Hamish was puzzled. Why should a minister call on a policeman at breakfast time to discuss the problem of AIDS? Hamish grew more uncomfortable as the minister’s pale eyes began to gleam with a hectic light as he went on to damn homosexuals. ‘ “Revenge is mine, saith the Lord,” ’ ended Mr Struthers.
‘And a good thing too,’ said Hamish cheerfully, trying to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Revenge is best left to God and justice. Look at this murder. That came about because someone decided to take the law into their own hands.’
Mr Struthers leaned across the desk and seized Hamish’s wrist in a strong clasp and his eyes bored into those of the policeman. ‘Homosexuality is a form of murder,’ he said.
Hamish picked up the minister’s hand and removed it. The light began to dawn. ‘It’s a pity,’ said Hamish, ‘that you have not got the real-live homosexual in Cnothan to practise your lack of Christian compassion on. You’re a terrible man for the gossip, Mr Struthers.’
‘I never listen to gossip,’ said the minister.
Hamish eyed him shrewdly. ‘And so this wee visit has nothing at all to do with Alistair Gunn believing me to be gay?’
The minister flushed angrily. ‘A certain parishioner came to me in great distress. He did not want to see AIDS in Cnothan.’
Hamish looked at the minister in disgust. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr Struthers, listening to rubbish from that malicious man.’
‘If I am mistaken, then I apologize,’ said the minister. ‘But where I find evil in my parish, I shall strike it down.’
‘Would you say William Mainwaring was evil?’ asked Hamish curiously.
The minister shifted uneasily. ‘He has suffered the wrath of God.’
‘Mainwaring suffered at the hands of a very evil human being, and if you want to spend your time striking out evil in your parish, then it is better you look for the murderer,’ said Hamish furiously. ‘Push off, there’s a good minister, and close the door behind you.’
‘Daft,’ muttered Hamish after the minister left. ‘They’re all plain daft.’
He walked down the main street in the sunshine, wishing it were all over, wishing the murder solved and himself back in Lochdubh.
He met Diarmuid Sinclair and told him about the room having been booked for him at the Glen Abb Hotel, and continued on down the hill. A car slowed to a halt beside him, and Harry Mackay, the estate agent popped his head out.
‘Like to come back to the office with me for a coffee?’ he called.
Hamish hesitated only a minute. Blair could wait. Harry Mackay might throw some light on the mystery.
The estate office was in a Victorian villa in the middle of the council houses. The office was in what used to be the front and back parlours on the ground floor. Harry Mackay led the way upstairs to his living-room, which was above the shop.
When he went off to make coffee, Hamish studied the bookshelves.
He turned round as the estate agent came back in carrying a tray with coffee and biscuits.
‘This is very kind of you,’ said Hamish.
Harry Mackay grinned. ‘I’m hoping to find out how our murder’s going. Blair won’t tell anyone anything.’
‘It’s not going anywhere,’ said Hamish gloomily. ‘Sandy Carmichael is the prime suspect and he hasn’t been found.’ Hamish then sat still, the coffee-cup half raised to his lips and his mouth open. He remembered sitting by the river in Inverness, thinking about all the suspects, and yet he had never once thought of Sandy Carmichael. Why? Surely it followed that the nosy Mainwaring had called round to bait Sandy and Sandy had struck him and shoved him in the pool. The very fact that Blair kept insisting it was Sandy had made him, Hamish Macbeth, discount the whole idea. There was the question of the clothes. Someone had got rid of the clothes. Surely the lobsters hadn’t eaten clothes, wallet, credit cards, watch, and all the other indestructible bits without leaving a trace. Teams of policemen had combed the area for miles around, looking for any sort of fragment, and they hadn’t come up with so much as a button. But there were peatbogs where a parcel of clothes would sink without a trace. Sandy’s cottage had been gone over. There had been evidence in the garden at the back that a fire had recently been lit, but there had been no ash to sift through. The Land Rover had been scrubbed and hosed down. When had Sandy ever bothered to clean his Land Rover before?
Hamish felt like a fool.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Harry Mackay. ‘You look as if you’ve just been struck by lightning.’
‘Nothing,’ mumbled Hamish. He pulled himself together. ‘How’s business?’
‘Not very good. There’s only one strange thing, Mrs Mainwaring called to see me. As soon as all the legal formalities are over, she wants me to buy the crofts and houses. I have a client for them in Edinburgh. Interested in holiday homes.’
Hamish’s eyes sharpened. ‘But not her own? She’ll be staying on there?’
‘Yes, her own as well. I warned her I can’t get her much. I may get six thousand pounds apiece for the crofts if I’m lucky, but the houses are in a worse state than when Mainwaring bought them.’
‘But Mrs Mainwaring has always said she liked Cnothan.’
‘Well, she told me she’ll be glad to get out. Wants to go back and live in Maidstone. And I’ll tell you another thing: she was stone-cold sober. I used to wonder how on earth she put up with Mainwaring, but she told me he held the purse-strings and if she had left him, she wouldn’t have got anything.’
‘He had a rare way with the ladies, I gather,’ said Hamish.
‘Not that I ever noticed,’ said Harry Mackay.
‘Didn’t interfere in your love life?’ asked Hamish.
‘What love life?’ countered Harry Mackay.
‘’There’s only two lookers around here. One’s that artist and the other’s Helen Ross.’
‘And no success there?’
‘No. I took Jenny Lovelace out for dinner a couple of times, but no go, and Helen Ross’s come-hither eye doesn’t mean a thing.’
‘Who do you think did it?’ asked Hamish. ‘The murder, I mean.’
‘Oh, don’t ask me. This place is getting me down. They’re all sick and twisted and narrow-minded and malicious.’
‘I thought you were a Cnothan man yourself?’
‘Aye, but I’ve been away from it for a long time, and I haven’t been able to settle since I came back.’
Hamish took his leave and went to the Anstey Hotel, where he found Blair half asleep in the television lounge. A children’s show flickered on the screen.
‘Do you usually watch “Postman Pat”?’ asked Hamish.
Blair came fully awake with a grunt. ‘I was thinking about clues,’ he said huffily. ‘Got something for me?’
Hamish sat down and began to read his report on Helen Ross.
‘Fancy whore,’ said Blair when Hamish had finished. ‘Ah’ll go and see her maself and have some fun.’
‘Don’t have too much fun,’ warned Hamish, ‘or Jamie’ll have his lawyer breathing down your neck.’
‘Get oot o’ here,’ snarled Blair, ‘and don’t tell me what tae do. Bugger off.’
Hamish went off out into the soft sunlight. It was a mellow day, too good a day for one constable to be fuming over a pill of a detective inspector.
All at once, he decided to go fishing. He had a telescopic rod in his luggage. He would go to the upper reaches of the Cnothan River and if the water bailiffs caught him, he could swear blind he was looking for clues. He needed peace and quiet to think.
He kept on his uniform – proof to any water bailiffs that he was on duty – and ambled over with Towser loping at his heels. He had strapped the collapsible rod on to his back under his waterproof cape.
As he strolled along beside the foaming river, he wished he had not worn his cape. The sun was quite warm, although clouds were massing to the west and the wind was becoming chill.
It struck him that he had not thought of Priscilla fo
r some time and he wondered whether he was cured.
Priscilla Halburton-Smythe sat in a chair in the hat shop in the King’s Road and searched the newspapers for some mention of Cnothan. But the papers were still full of the aftermath of the Downing Street bombing.
The shop door opened and her friend, Sara Paterson, who owned the shop and shared a flat with Priscilla, came in. Priscilla’s eyes slid to the clock. Eleven in the morning! Sarah was always late.
‘I brought you a letter,’ said Sarah. ‘Arrived after you left.’
Priscilla took the letter and opened it. It was from her father. Her eye skimmed down it, looking for some mention of Hamish. Ah, here it was. Colonel Halburton-Smythe was incensed that Hamish Macbeth was still absent from Lochdubh. He had written to the Chief Constable to complain. It was an insult, leaving Lochdubh without a policeman, even though Hamish Macbeth was a gangling, useless lout. Priscilla’s father thought his daughter was too friendly with the village policeman and never missed an opportunity to malign Hamish.
It dawned on Priscilla all at once that London was a very boring place compared to the Highlands of Scotland. ‘Nothing ever happens here,’ she said aloud.
‘Oh, but darling, it does!’ trilled Sarah. ‘I met Peter Twist at a divine party last night and he’s going to buy this white elephant of a shop from me.’
‘You might have warned me you were thinking of selling,’ said Priscilla angrily.
‘Don’t be cross, sweetie. You won’t be out of a job. He’s going to have all these divine fashions. All black leather, you know. The shop’s going to be called Champers Campers and we’re to stand around in his creations.’
‘I don’t think so, Sarah darling,’ said Priscilla. ‘I’m getting out. I mean I’m going north.’
‘What? Leave London for the sticks just when everything’s happening? I know what it is – you’ve got a fellow tucked away up there.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Priscilla coolly. ‘Look, there’s two women about to come in. Let’s see if we can sell something for a change.’
Hamish trudged on, looking for a quiet reach or pool where he could fish without being accused of poaching. The path now ran parallel to the river, but high above it. Then he saw, below him, a quiet pool surrounded by tangled undergrowth. He could sit quietly and fish and he would be able to hear any water bailiff approaching since the spot could be reached only with difficulty.
He slipped and scrambled down, with Towser slipping and scrambling down behind him.
Hamish unstrapped his rod and began to put it together. It didn’t seem such a good idea now as it had seemed earlier when the sun had been shining. It was now bitter cold, the sky was changing from light grey to dark grey, and the wind scudded across the black surface of the water.
Towser, who always seemed impervious to the cold, sat down beside his master and watched the water.
Then the dog began to shift uneasily. It let out a faint whimper, sniffed the air, and pawed at Hamish’s arm. Hamish stiffened and sniffed the air too. The wind had shifted from the west to the north-west and on it came the sickly sweet smell of decomposing corpse.
Hamish got to his feet. ‘Fetch,’ he said to Towser, but the dog backed away, whimpering dismally.
Hamish felt a sick lurch in his stomach. If the smell had come from a rotting animal carcass, then Towser would not have been upset.
He wedged his rod between two rocks and, still sniffing the air, he began to search around. Up to the left of where he had scrambled down, the smell grew stronger. Diligently sniffing, pausing, and sniffing again, Hamish got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the close-packed undergrowth of fern and bramble and gorse.
He stopped and crouched still. The smell was now so strong it made him want to retch. And then he saw it.
A pale hand was stretching out from under a bush.
Hamish lay on his stomach and looked under the bush and the dead eyes of Sandy Carmichael stared back.
He ran back to the pool and grabbed his fishing rod and collapsed it and fled up the hill with Towser at his heels.
Blair, Anderson, and MacNab arrived just as the blizzard struck. With Hamish, they huddled under the bushes by the rotting corpse waiting for reinforcements. At one moment, it seemed as if they would never come, and then they were all there, glaring lamps lighting up the dreadful scene as a tent was erected over the bush and body. Then came the pathologist, who was hailed with relief by Blair.
‘Ye’ll find it a clear case o’ death from exposure,’ said Blair. ‘He was on the run, drunk, crawled under that bush, and never woke up. Ah, well, that wraps up the case.’ Blair pulled a flask from his pocket and took a stiff drink. He winked at Hamish. ‘Nae problem about lobsters now, lad,’ he said. ‘The murderer’s dead and we can say what we like.’
Hamish said nothing, but watched as the pathologist crept into the tent.
After what seemed a very long time, he backed out.
‘Well?’ demanded Blair eagerly.
‘A clear case of murder,’ said the pathologist. ‘Struck a heavy blow on the back of the head.’
‘Couldnae he hae done it hisself?’ pleaded Blair.
‘Of course not,’ snapped the pathologist. ‘I shall be phoning my report to the procurator fiscal. Get photographs quick or we’ll all be snowed in.’
Hamish shovelled a path to the foot of the drive the next day. He had just reached the gate when a snowplough passed and blocked him in again, throwing up a huge wall of snow against the front gate. By the time he had cleared it, he felt sweaty and gritty. He went indoors, had a shower, changed into his uniform, and went down to the Anstey Hotel.
The blizzard, luckily for Blair, had kept most of the press away, but Hamish arrived just in time to hear Ian Gibb asking, ‘Who found the body?’ and Blair’s reply of ‘Some local idiot.’
Hamish felt too angry to stay. Blair would withhold all information possible from him. He bumped into Jimmy Anderson outside the hotel. ‘I’m frightened to go in there,’ said Anderson with a grin. ‘Blair’s roaring mad. His chief suspect murdered.’
‘Definitely murdered?’
‘Oh, yes. And another thing: he had a hundred pounds on him.’
‘It couldnae ha’ been his savings,’ said Hamish. ‘A drunk like Sandy wouldn’t have been able to keep a penny.’
‘Aye, and he must have been trying to blackmail the murderer. A hundred pounds would have kept his mouth shut.’
‘Until the next time he was drunk,’ said Hamish sadly. ‘It’s no wonder he was killed.’
Anderson went into the hotel and Hamish walked down to the waterfront. The snow was thinning and he could see the other side of the loch. An army rescue helicopter stood on a flat piece of ground by the jetty, the pilot standing outside it, smoking.
Hamish ambled up to the pilot. ‘You aren’t dropping emergency supplies yet?’ he asked.
The pilot shook his head. ‘There’s more bad weather coming. I’m just about to go up to pick out the houses that’ll need it most and make sure there’s no one in difficulties.’
A pale ray of sunlight struck the loch. ‘Are you going up right now?’ asked Hamish.
The pilot stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Aye, I’m on my way.’
‘Any chance of coming along for the ride?’ asked Hamish, who had a sudden longing to soar high above Cnothan and everyone and everything in it.
‘Sure, hop in.’
Hamish felt his spirits lifting as the helicopter started to rise. The clouds were rapidly thinning. He sat very still, with his hands on his knees, like a child on a fairground ride, staring down at the Christmas-card countryside with delight. The pilot began to ask questions about the murder, and Hamish answered absentmindedly, his eyes on the white scene spread out below.
‘Needn’t bother about those two cottages,’ said the pilot. ‘They’re empty.’
Hamish could see the two houses far below and then beyond them, towards Cnothan, Mrs Mainwaring’s bung
alow. He could see Mrs Mainwaring herself, shovelling snow.
‘Would you believe it,’ said the pilot. ‘There’s the train. I wouldn’t have thought it would have got through. They must have had a plough out on the line early this morning.’
The helicopter banked. The railway line curving out of Cnothan disappeared into the hills in a fantastic loop. In the days when it had been built, it had meandered all over Sutherland to take in the country homes and shooting lodges of the rich. Then the whole scene was blotted out as the sun disappeared and the blizzard came roaring back.
Like most people in Sutherland, Hamish had not bothered to lock the door when he had left. As he trudged up to the police-station drive, which was already becoming thickly covered with snow again, he could hear voices from the kitchen.
He opened the door. Diarmuid Sinclair and Jenny were sitting drinking coffee. A huge box stood on the floor.
‘Oh, Hamish,’ said Jenny, ‘you must help. Mr Sinclair’s bought a train set for young Sean and he wants you to put it together first to see if it works. He can’t understand the instructions and I’m no good at that sort of thing either.’
‘I shouldnae be wasting time,’ said Hamish guiltily. ‘There’s been another murder.’
‘We know. That Mrs MacNeill just called to find out why you hadn’t arrested herself. I asked who herself was but she wouldn’t tell me.’
‘She thinks the minister’s wife did it,’ said Hamish, kneeling down on the floor and beginning to open the box.
‘Of course she would,’ said Jenny. ‘She’s got a crush on Mr Struthers. Even when her husband was alive – and that was only four years ago – she was chasing the minister. This is becoming really scary. Whoever murdered Sandy and William must be a maniac.’
Hamish thought he would just assemble a few bits and then leave them to do the rest. He was a policeman and however obstructive his superior officer might be, he, Hamish Macbeth, should be on the job.
But it was soothing, fascinating work as the miniature landscape grew under his fingers with its tiny trees and little stations.
Finally the toy railway was complete. Jenny and Diarmuid sat on the floor and watched enraptured as the trains whizzed around and around.
