by M C Beaton
‘Why, in heaven’s name?’
‘I have my home here and my sheep and hens and geese. I have my friends and neighbours. I am a very happy man.’
Mr Daviot looked up at him curiously. ‘Are you really happy?’
‘As much as a man can be.’
The superintendent felt a pang of pure envy. ‘Well, if that’s the way you want it. What does Priscilla think about settling down in the village police station?’
‘Priscilla is not marrying me. We’re just friends. As a matter of fact, she’s got a fellow in London.’
Priscilla herself was saying very much the same thing to Mrs Daviot. She was feeling uncomfortable under Mrs Daviot’s prying questions and had answered them coldly and then haughtily. Both looked up in relief as the men rejoined them.
Mrs Daviot then saw Detective Chief Inspector Blair for the first time. She was smarting after Priscilla’s cold behaviour. Blair was such a nice man, thought Mrs Daviot, meaning that he could be guaranteed to grovel. ‘Dehrling,’ she said to her husband, ‘there’s thet naice Mr Blair. Do esk him over to join us for coffee.’
Blair came over, almost at a run. Mr Daviot felt himself begin to relax. There was something so reassuring about Blair. Typical detective. Hamish was odd, eccentric and upsetting. No one really likes to come across a happy and contented man. Besides, as he was not going to marry Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, there was no longer any need to think of him as a social equal.
After dinner, Priscilla and Hamish walked together along the waterfront. She had a long white silk stole about her shoulders and the fringed ends fluttered in the breeze. The wind had dropped and the stars shone brightly overhead.
‘So you refused promotion,’ said Priscilla flatly. ‘What is to become of you, Hamish?’
‘Nothing I hope,’ he said lazily. ‘Obsession’s a funny thing,’ he said, half to himself, thinking about Angela Brodie, Paul Thomas, . . . and himself. It was so peaceful to be able to stroll along beside Priscilla without being in the grip of that old, terrible yearning.
‘People who want to get on in life are not obsessed,’ said Priscilla crossly.
‘Like John Burlington?’
‘Yes, like him. What would the world be like if everyone were like Hamish Macbeth?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hamish mildly, ‘and I don’t care either. I don’t go about lecturing people on the folly of pursuing a career. That would be silly. Ambition’s a grand thing. I wonder what it’s like? Still hear from John Burlington?’
‘Yes, I’m going back in two weeks’ time and he’s going to meet me at the airport.’
‘And will you marry him?’
‘I don’t know. I might.’
‘Poor Priscilla.’
‘It’s poor Hamish. I don’t believe you’re unambitious. I think you’re as big a coward as Paul Thomas. I think you’re frightened of the big outside world.’
‘I don’t like it, I’ll admit,’ he said, still in that placid, happy voice which was beginning to get on Priscilla’s nerves. ‘If you choose to think I’m frightened, then you are entitled to your opinion. Well, there we are. Home.’
The blue lamp over the porch of the police station shone down through the rambling roses. Towser was standing on his back legs, his paws on the gate. Priscilla’s car was parked outside.
‘Coming in for a nightcap?’ offered Hamish.
Priscilla hesitated. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said.
She sat in the living room while Hamish made coffee and fished out a small bottle of brandy. He stood looking at the bottle. He remembered he had bought it in the hope of just such an occasion as this. He put it on a tray along with the cups and coffee jug and two glasses and carried it through to the sitting room.
‘Let’s look at television,’ said Hamish. ‘I just want to catch what’s on the news.’ He switched on the set and then settled himself in the armchair after seeing that Priscilla had her coffee and brandy.
As Hamish leaned back and watched the news, Priscilla studied him. He was not only free from the pangs of ambition, but, she realized with a little shock, he was free from her. She had never known Hamish had been in love with her, but now that it was gone, she realized for the first time what was missing. Had he fallen out of love with her because of John? Was that kiss which had seemed to her exciting a big disappointment to him?
Hamish’s eyelids began to droop. She leaned forward and took the brandy glass from his hand and put it on the table. In minutes, he was fast asleep. She felt she ought to leave but suddenly could not find the will to get up and go. Towser lay at her feet, snoring. The news finished and a showing of Casablanca came on. Priscilla sat and watched it through to the end, and then, without disturbing Hamish, she let herself out of the police station and made her way home.
Two weeks later, Hamish decided to pluck up courage and call on the Brodies. He had not seen the doctor in the pub, and heard from the gossips that the doctor had actually given up smoking.
The clammy weather had gone and the days were crisp and sunny and cool with a hint of frost to herald the early Highland autumn.
He walked around to the Brodies’ kitchen door and rang the bell.
‘Walk in!’ came the doctor’s voice.
Angela and her husband were seated at either side of the kitchen table. He was reading a book and had a pile of books on his side of the table and his wife had her pile of books on the other and was studying one which was propped up against the jam jar. Between them lay the cat, resting its chin on top of the cheese dish.
‘Oh, it’s yourself, Hamish,’ said the doctor. ‘Help yourself to coffee and find a chair.’ Angela looked up and smiled at him vaguely and returned to her books.
Hamish poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. ‘This looks like a university library,’ he said.
‘It is in a way,’ said the doctor. ‘Angela is studying for a degree in science at the Open University, and I’m getting back to my studies. I’m away behind the times.’
‘You were that,’ said Hamish. ‘I hear you’ve given up smoking. Maybe Mrs Thomas did you some good after all.’
‘I hate to say a good word about that woman,’ said Dr Brodie. ‘But I’ll tell you this much, Angela recovered pretty quickly and she said she would make me one of my old breakfasts, you know, fried everything with ketchup. Well, I wolfed it down and as I was walking to the surgery, I felt downright bad-tempered and queasy. Seem to have got a taste for muesli and salads.’ Hamish glanced at the title of the book the doctor had been reading, Women and the Menopause.
‘So, I decided it was high time I moved with the times,’ said Dr Brodie. ‘There’s a lot in this mind over matter business. I mean, I’ve got some patients who think they’re on special tranquillizers when they’re actually taking milk of magnesia tablets and yet they swear they’ve never felt better.’
Angela rose from the table. She was wearing quite a pretty dress and her perm was growing out. She scooped up an armful of books. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘There’s a programme I want to watch on television.’
‘So everything’s all right,’ said Hamish.
‘Oh, yes, I was afraid Angela’s mind was going to snap. And all over what? Some silly English housewife.’
Hamish reflected that the silly English housewife had at least stopped the doctor smoking and got him back to his medical books.
After he left them, he strolled along the waterfront. The sky was a pale green and the first star was just appearing. The peace of the world surrounded Hamish Macbeth.
Along at the harbour, the fishing boats were getting ready to set out. As he came nearer, he saw Mrs Maclean and Archie. Mrs Maclean handed her husband a packet of sandwiches and a thermos and then she put her arms about him and gave him a hug.
‘Well, I neffer!’ said Hamish Macbeth. He shoved his hands in his pockets and began to whistle as soft night fell and the little fishing boats with their bobbing lights made their way out to sea.
Pr
iscilla Halburton-Smythe opened the door to her flat in Lower Sloane Street in London’s Chelsea. She was feeling tired and cross. John Burlington had not turned up at the airport to meet the Inverness plane and so she had taken the underground train and it had broken down outside Acton for an hour.
She picked up the post from the doormat and carried it through to the kitchen along with a copy of the Evening Standard that she had bought in Sloane Square.
She flicked through the post and noticed someone had sent her a newspaper from America. She slit open the brown paper wrapper. Her friend, Peta Bently, now living in Connecticut, had sent her a copy of the Greenwich Times. ‘See page five,’ Peta had scrawled on the front of it.
Priscilla turned to page five. There was a picture of Hamish Macbeth standing with Towser under the roses outside the Lochdubh police station.
The caption read, ‘Local businessman, Carl Steinberger, took this photograph of a Highland bobby while on holiday in Scotland. A far cry from Hill Street Blues!’
The photograph had been printed in colour.
‘He might have told them about the murder,’ muttered Priscilla. She unfolded the Evening Standard. John Burlington’s face seemed to leap up at her from the front page. His face bore a tortured look and he was surrounded by detectives.
‘Arrested for insider trading at his Belgravia home, stockbroker socialite, John Burlington,’ Priscilla read.
The phone rang and she went to answer it.
The voice of her friend, Sarah James, came shrilly down the line. Wasn’t it just too awful about poor John? As the voice went on and on, Priscilla looked out of the window. The traffic in Lower Sloane Street was belching fumes out in the air. She turned slowly and looked at the newspapers, lying side by side on the kitchen table, at the frantic face of John Burlington and at the happy face of PC Macbeth.
