Hamish Macbeth 14 (1999) - Death of a Scriptwriter

by M C Beaton

  Title:

  Death of a Scriptwriter

  Series:

  Book 14 in the Hamish Macbeth series

  Author:

  M.C. Beaton

  Year:

  1999

  Synopsis:

  Scottish detective Hamish Macbeth investigates the slaying of a mystery writer who dares to complain about a television adaptation of her books that turns her aristocratic heroine into a marijuana-smoking hippie.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!

  That Youth’s sweet-scented Manuscript should close!

  —Edward Fitzgerald

  Patricia Martyn-Broyd had not written a detective story in years. In her early seventies she had retired to the Highlands of Sutherland on the east side of the village of Cnothan, to a trim, low, whitewashed croft house. She had now been living in the outskirts of Cnothan for five years. She had hoped that the wild isolation of her surroundings would inspire her to write again, but every time she sat down in front of her battered old Remington typewriter, she would feel a great weight of failure settling on her shoulders and the words would not come. For the past fifteen years her books had been out of print. Yet her last detective story, published in 1965, The Case of the Rising Tides, featuring her Scottish aristocrat detective, Lady Harriet Vere, had been a modest success.

  Patricia looked remarkable for her age. She had a head of plentiful snow white hair, a thin, muscular, upright figure and square ‘hunting’ shoulders. Her nose was thin and curved like a beak, her pale blue eyes hooded by heavy lids. She was the daughter of a land agent, dead many years now, as was her mother. Patricia had been head girl in her youth at a school more famed for the titles of its pupils than for educational standards. A crush on her English teacher had introduced her to reading detective stories, and then, after an unsuccessful spell on the London scene as a debutante, she had decided to write.

  She had never forgotten the thrill of having her first book published. Her plots were complicated and thoroughly researched. She was fond of plots involving railway timetables, the times of high and low tides and London bus routes. Her main character, Lady Harriet Vere, had grown up, as Patricia herself had grown up, in a world where everyone knew their place in society and what was due to their betters. Light relief was provided by a cast of humorous servants or sinister butlers and gardeners and clod-hopping policemen who were always left openmouthed by the expertise of Lady Harriet.

  But as the world changed, Patricia stayed the same, as did her characters. Sales of her books dwindled. She had a private income from a family trust and did not need to find other work. She had at last persuaded herself that a move to the far north of Scotland would inspire her. Although her character, Lady Harriet, was Scottish, Patricia had never been to Scotland before her move north. There was a stubborn streak in Patricia which would not let her admit to herself that she had made a terrible mistake and added the burden of loneliness to the burden of failure.

  She had recently returned from a holiday in Athens. The weather in Greece had been bright and sunny, and in the evenings, the streets of Athens were well lit and bustling with people. But all too soon it was back to London, to catch the plane to Inverness. The plane had descended through banks of cloud into Heathrow. How dark and dismal everything had seemed. How cold and rainy. How grim and sour the people. Then the flight to Inverness and down into more rain and darkness, and then the long drive home.

  The county of Sutherland is the largest, most underpopulated area in western Europe, with its lochs and mountains and vast expanses of bleak moorland. As she had unlocked the door of her cottage, the wind had been howling around the low building with a mad, keening sound. A brief thought of suicide flicked through Patricia’s weary brain, to be quickly dismissed. Such as the Martyn-Broyds did not commit suicide.

  Patricia attended the local Church of Scotland, although she was an Anglican, for the nearest Episcopal church involved too long and weary a drive. She could have made friends, but the ones she considered of her own caste did not want to know her, and the ones who did, she considered beneath her. She was not particularly cold or snobbish, and she was lonely, but it was the way she had been brought up. She did have acquaintances in the village, the local people she stopped to chat to, but no close friends at all.

  A week after her return from Athens, she still felt restless and so decided to treat herself to dinner at the Tommel Castle Hotel. The hotel had been the home of Colonel Halburton-Smythe, who had turned it into a successful hotel after he had fallen on hard times. Although a hotel, it still had all the air of a comfortable Highland country house, and Patricia felt at home there.

  She began to feel better as she sat down in the dining room and looked around. The month was June, and after a grim winter and icy spring, when Siberian winds had blown from the east, bringing blizzards and chilblains, the wind had suddenly shifted to the west, carrying the foretaste of better weather to come.

  The dining room was quite full. A noisy fishing party dominated the main table in the centre of the room, Patricia’s kind of people but oblivious to one lonely spinster in the corner.

  Then waitresses came in and began to bustle about, putting the remaining tables together to form one large one. A coach party entered, noisy and flushed, and took places round this table. Patricia frowned. Who would have thought that the Tommel Castle Hotel would allow a coach party?

  The fact was that the colonel was away with his wife visiting friends, his daughter was in London and the manager, Mr. Johnson, had decided that a party of middle-aged tourists could do no harm.

  Patricia had just finished her soup and was wishing she had the courage to cancel the rest of her order when a tall, lanky man came into the dining room and stood looking around. He had flaming red hair and intelligent hazel eyes. His suit was well cut and he wore a snowy white shirt and silk tie. But with it, he was wearing a large pair of ugly boots.

  The maître d’ went up to him and Patricia heard him say sourly, “We have no tables left, Macbeth.”

  “Mr. Macbeth to you, Jenkins,” she heard the man with the red hair say in a light, amused voice. “I’m sure you’ll have a table soon.”

  They had both moved into the dining room and were standing beside Patricia’s table.

  “No, not for a long time,” said the maître d’.

  The man called Macbeth suddenly saw Patricia watching him and gave her a smile.

  Patricia could not quite believe the sound of her own voice, but she heard herself saying stiffly, “The gentleman can share my table if he wishes.”

  “That will not be necessary…,” began Jenkins, but the red-haired man promptly sat down opposite her.

  “Run along, Jenkins,” he said, “and glare at someone else.”

  Hamish Macbeth turned to Patricia. “This is verra kind of you.”

  She regretted her invitation and wished she had brought a book with her.

  “I am Hamish Macbeth,” he said with another of those charming smiles. “I am the village policeman in Lochdubh, and you are Miss Patricia Martyn-Broyd and you live over by Cnothan.”

  “I did not think we had met,” said Patricia.

  “We haven’t,” said Hamish. “But you know what the Highlands are like. Everyone knows everyone else. I heard you had been away.” He took the menu from a hovering waitress as he spoke. He scanned it quickly. “I’ll have the soup and the trout,” he said.

  “I have just come back from Greece,” said Patricia. “Do you know Greece?”

  “I don’t know much
of anywhere except the Highlands of Scotland,” said Hamish ruefully. “I’m an armchair traveller. I am surprised you stayed up here so long.”

  “Why?” asked Patricia.

  “It can be a lonely place. Usually the English we get are drunks or romantics, and I would say you do not fall into either category.”

  “Hardly,” said Patricia with a fluting, humorless laugh. “I am a writer.”

  “Of what?”

  “Detective stories.”

  “I read a lot o’ those,” said Hamish. “You must write under another name.”

  “I regret to say my books have been out of print for some time.”

  “Ah, well,” said Hamish awkwardly. “I am sure you will find the inspiration up here.”

  “I hardly think the county of Sutherland is overrun with criminals.”

  “I meant, it’s a funny landscape which can produce the weird fancies.”

  “My last detective story was set in Scotland, but the others, mainly in the south, were village mysteries.”

  “Like Agatha Christie?”

  “A little better crafted, if I may say so,” said Patricia, again with that irritating laugh of hers.

  “Then it iss the miracle that yours are out o’ print,” said Hamish maliciously.

  “It is not my fault. I had a useless publisher, who would not promote them properly, and a worse agent,” snapped Patricia, and then, to her horror, she began to cry.

  “There, now,” said Hamish. “Don’t greet. You havenae settled down after all the travel, and it’s been a grim winter. I would like to read one o’ your books.”

  Patricia produced a small, white, starched handkerchief from her handbag and wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

  “I think I am too out of touch with the modern world to write a detective story again,” she said, all the time wondering why she was confiding in a village policeman.

  “I could help you wi’ a wee bit o’ information, if you like.”

  “That’s very kind of you. But I do not think it would do much good. I’ve tried to write another one with a Highland background, but my mind seems set in England.”

  “Perhaps you should get to know a few of us better,” said Hamish, “and then it might come easier.”

  “Perhaps,” she echoed sadly.

  “Although, if I may point out,” said Hamish cautiously, “Cnothan is not the friendliest village in the place. In fact, I would say it’s a sour little dump.”

  She gave him a watery smile. “Not like Lochdubh?”

  “There’s nowhere like Lochdubh,” said Hamish stoutly. “Maybe if you stopped writing for a bit, it would all come back. Do you fish?”

  “I still have my rods, but I haven’t done any fishing for a long time.”

  Somewhere in Hamish’s head a warning bell was beginning to clang, telling him to stay away from lame ducks in general and this woman in particular, who had been locally damned as an “awfy auld snob.” But he said, “I hae the day off tomorrow. I’ll take ye out on the Anstey if ye want.”

  This met with Patricia’s ideas of what was right and fitting. Fishing on a Scottish river with a policeman as ghillie was socially acceptable to her mind.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I will need a permit.”

  Hamish shifted uneasily. “Oh, I’ll see to that. Pick you up at nine in the morning.”

  They chatted pleasantly through the rest of the meal, Hamish amiably but Patricia betraying with each further sentence the awful rigidity of her attitudes.

  They separated at the end of the meal, each with different thoughts, Hamish regretting his generous gesture and Patricia feeling quite elated. Hamish Macbeth was really quite intelligent, she thought. It was a shame he was only a village policeman. Perhaps with her help he could make something of himself. And so Patricia drove happily homewards, not knowing she had joined the long list of women who thought they could change one contented, unambitious Highland constable.

  She felt the glorious blustery morning that dawned was a good omen. But nine o’clock came and went and she began to feel panicky. If Hamish did not come, then it meant slipping back into that depressing isolation which had become her way of life.

  And then at half past nine, she saw to her relief a police Land Rover lurching over the potholes in the road, a fishing rod sticking out of the window.

  She went out to meet him. “Sorry I’m late,” said Hamish. “Have you got waders? I forgot to ask.”

  “Yes, although I haven’t used them for some time. I hope they’re still waterproof,” said Patricia.

  “We’ll take your car if you don’t mind,” said Hamish. “I’m not really supposed to drive people around in a police car unless I’m arresting them.”

  Soon they were fishing on the river Anstey. The mountain-tops were clear against a blue sky for the first time in months. Patricia found to her delight that she had lost none of her old skill. She was just about to suggest a break for lunch when the enterprising constable said he had brought along a picnic. Patricia had caught two trout and Hamish one.

  “Afore we have our food, I would suggest we pack everything up and put it in the boot o’ your car,” said Hamish.

  “But why?” She felt sharply disappointed. “I hoped we would have some more fishing.”

  Hamish looked around, scanning the riverbanks and the surrounding hillsides. “Aye, well, we’ll do that, but chust let’s put the stuff away.”

  They stripped off their waders and dismantled their rods and put all the fishing impedimenta in the boot of Patricia’s car.

  Hamish produced a picnic basket from which he removed thick chicken sandwiches and a flask of coffee.

  They were sitting on a flat rock beside the river when a truculent voice behind them said, “I hope ye havenae been fishing this river, Macbeth.”

  “Oh, it iss yourself, Willie,” said Hamish without turning around. “No, no, Miss Martyn-Broyd and myself was chust having the picnic.”

  Patricia swung round, her mouth full of sandwich.

  “Willie MacPhee, the water bailiff,” said Hamish, his eyes signalling a warning.

  Willie was a thick-set man with beetling brows in a red weatherbeaten face. He had a heavy round chin, but his head tapered to a narrow crown, giving the appearance of a face seen reflected in a shiny balloon.

  He lumbered up to Patricia’s car and peered in the windows. Patricia’s heart beat hard. All at once she knew Hamish’s reason for shutting all the fishing stuff up in the boot. He did not have a fishing permit!

  Willie came back and stood over them. “I hope ye know, missus,” he said, addressing Patricia, “that ye cannae fish the Anstey without a permit.”

  The daughter of the land agent felt quite queasy. She wondered why she had never stopped to consider how a Highland policeman could even afford the probably horrendous price of a fishing permit. But she did not like being loomed over.

  Miss Patricia Martyn-Broyd got to her feet.

  “Are you accusing me of poaching, my good man?” she demanded in glacial tones.

  Willie gave an odd, ducking movement of his head, like a dog backing down before a more powerful adversary.

  “Just making sure,” he said sulkily. “Macbeth here has no respect for the law.”

  With that, he lumbered off.

  Patricia waited until she was sure he was out of earshot and then rounded on Hamish. “How could you? And you a policeman.”

  “Well, I’m a Highlander as well, and it iss considered no crime up here to take a fish from the river.”

  “If it is no crime, then why do they have game laws and why do they have water bailiffs?”

  “That,” said Hamish, unrepentant, “is to add a spice o’ danger to the sport. We’ll just enjoy our meal and try the river again.”

  “Are you mad? I, for one, do not want to appear in a Scottish sheriff’s court.”

  “He won’t be back,” said Hamish cheerfully. “He’s lazy. He only picks on easy targets.”
r />   Patricia was about to suggest sternly that she return home immediately, but in that moment a picture of her windswept cottage arose in her mind’s eye. Having broken out of her long isolation, she was reluctant to go back to it.

  She gave a weak smile. “You are a terrible man. You must be in your thirties and yet you are still only a policeman. Is that because you have little respect for the law?”

  “Except for the fishing, I haff the great respect for the law,” said Hamish. “But I like Lochdubh and I hate Strathbane, which is where I would have to go if I got promoted.”

  “But everyone is ambitious.”

  “And not everyone is happy. You are looking at the exception to the rule.”

  They fished all afternoon in the warm sunlight without catching anything else, but Patricia enjoyed herself immensely. At the end of the day, she invited Hamish to join her for dinner, but he said he had reports to type up. Patricia wanted to ask if she could see him again but felt as shy and tongue-tied as a teenager and just as frightened of rejection.

  Hamish, with that almost telepathic ability of the Highlander, was well aware of what was going through her mind. She hadn’t been bad company, he thought. Maybe she would now branch out a bit. Don’t get involved, screamed his mind. She’s all right, but she’s a bit rigid and pompous, and if she’s lonely, it is all her own damned fault. But he found himself saying weakly as he climbed out of her car, “Perhaps I could help ye with some ideas for a detective story? Maybe we could hae a bit o’ dinner tomorrow night.”

  Her face glowed. “That is very kind of you, but let it be my treat. Where would you like to go?”

  “The Napoli, that Italian restaurant in Lochdubh.”

  “Very well,” said Patricia happily. “I will see you at eight o’clock.”

  She turned and went indoors. She scooped the post up from the doormat. The postman had delivered her mail that day after she had left. She carried the letters in and dropped them on the table in the living room. She never received anything interesting through the post. It was usually bank statements and junk mail.

  She hummed to herself as she made a cup of tea. She carried it through to her little living room cum dining room and sat down at the table.