Hamish Macbeth 14 (1999) - Death of a Scriptwriter

by M C Beaton

  Over in Drim, Miss Alice MacQueen, the local hairdresser, could not sleep for excitement. A television company was coming to film in Drim! They would have their own hairdresser, of course. Or would they? Business had been slack. The local women came in for a perm about every six months. But they would all be hoping to at least appear in a crowd scene, and they would all be wanting to get their hair done. A good bit of business and she could get a new kitchen unit from the DIY shop in Inverness. She finally drifted off to sleep and into a happy dream where she was no longer hairdressing in the front parlour of her cottage but had a posh salon with a smart staff in pink smocks.

  Mrs. Edie Aubrey, her neighbour, was also in a state of excitement. She had once run exercise classes in the community hall, but gradually the women had lost interest and Edie had felt time lying heavy on her hands. She would put up her poster on the notice board at the community hall in the morning. Perhaps she might get a part herself? Better get round to Alice in the morning and get her hair done.

  Patricia Martyn-Broyd was awakened with the sound of the telephone ringing. She struggled out of bed. After midnight!

  Who could it be?

  She picked up the receiver and gave a cautious, “Yes?”

  “I’m so sorry to ring so late. This is Mrs. Struthers.” The Cnothan minister’s wife. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’ve just heard that they’re going to be filming your book in Drim!”

  “Drim. Where’s that?”

  “It’s just the other side of Lochdubh. Didn’t you know?”

  “No,” said Patricia bleakly. If they had chosen Drim, then it meant they had been up in Sutherland and had not even bothered to call on her.

  “They were over at Major Neal’s today. They’re going to use his castle—Castle Drim.”

  “Today? Are they still here?”

  “Yes, three of them. They’re staying at the Tommel Castle Hotel.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Struthers,” said Patricia. She would need to go over there in the morning, find out why they had not troubled to consult her. It was her book!

  But when she called at the hotel at nine o’clock the following morning, it was to find her quarry had checked out. Patricia drove into Lochdubh and then followed the signposts to Drim, a village she had never visited.

  She gritted her teeth as her car slid and skidded down the hillside to Drim. The sky was black and a few flakes of snow were beginning to fall.

  She saw a large van with the legend ‘Strathclyde Television’ painted on its side parked by the loch and in front of the general store.

  She pulled up beside it and went inside. Fiona, Sheila and Jamie were talking to the owner, Jock Kennedy. They were making arrangements to use the store for filming.

  Patricia’s voice cut across their conversation. “Ahem,” she said, “I am surprised you did not call on me first to consult me.”

  They all swung around, Fiona quickly masking her dismay. “Why, Patricia,” she said with a smile. “We were just going to call on you when we finished here. This is Jamie Gallagher, our scriptwriter. Jamie, Miss Patricia Martyn-Broyd, the author.”

  Sheila knew that Jamie had a blinding hangover and that Jamie despised Patricia’s writing, so she was surprised when Jamie beamed at Patricia and said, “It’s an honour to meet you. Perhaps you’d like to come along with us until we fix up our business here and see how it all works, and then we can have a bite of lunch?”

  Patricia melted. “That would be very exciting,” she said.

  “Fiona, I’ll leave you to finalise the arrangements with Jock here,” said Jamie. “A word with you outside, Sheila.”

  He ushered Sheila outside. Then he turned and faced her. “Don’t let that old bat get wind of what’s in the script,” he hissed. “And get your arse over to the major’s and tell him the same thing or he can kiss his castle goodbye.”

  “She’s bound to find out sooner or later,” said Sheila.

  “Then let it be later. I’ve worked with these authors before, and they’re a pain. They all ponce about as if they’ve written War and Peace instead of a piece of shite. She’ll just have to lump it. There’s nothing in her contract about her having any say in the script.”

  But do they have to be so nice to her? thought Sheila as she drove off towards the castle. It’s going to be a terrible blow when she finds Drim Castle is going to be featured as a hippie sixties commune.

  The major was in his modest bungalow home. “I moved in here two years ago and rented the castle,” he said after he had served Sheila a cup of coffee. “It’s a hell of a place to heat and get cleaned.”

  Sheila told him the reason for her visit.

  “Funnily enough, I was talking over just that with Hamish Macbeth, the policeman at Lochdubh, and he said something to the effect that it would be cruel to let the old girl know at this stage. Let her have her dream for a bit longer. She couldn’t stop it if she knew, could she?”

  “No, but she could go to the press, although that would not make much difference. They must be used to writers complaining about their work being mangled on television.”

  “I’m feeling sorry for her. What kind of woman is she?”

  “In her seventies, but very fit. Very vain, but a bit shaky underneath, if that makes sense. I think maybe she’s a more powerful personality than Harry Frame—that’s our executive producer—realises.”

  “Whereas you, so young and experienced, do?” The major’s eyes twinkled.

  Sheila laughed. “I’m not so hardened as the rest of them, so I notice people as people and not as commodities.”

  “There’s a great deal of excitement in Drim over this.” The major suddenly frowned. “I just hope it doesn’t lead to trouble like the last time.”

  “You mean Drim’s been used by a television company before?”

  “No, it wasn’t that. I was away at the time, but there was a young Englishman came up here to live. Very handsome. Flirted with all the ladies and broke a lot of hearts. He was murdered by the minister’s wife.”

  “Gosh, I remember reading about that.”

  “Poor Hamish Macbeth got into trouble over that. He shocked a confession out of the minister’s wife by confronting her with a dead body, but it was the wrong body, a rare specimen of Pictish man, and Hamish had every historian and paleontologist in the country down on him like a ton of bricks.”

  “Hamish recommended Drim.”

  “That’s probably his Highland humour. Drim’s a funny place.”

  “How do you mean funny?”

  “You’ve seen it. It’s locked away from the world at the end of the loch. Don’t get many outsiders. There was a lot of malice and spite over the Englishman. I hope the women competing for parts in the series don’t get at each other’s throats. Your genuine Highlander is not like the lowland or central Scot. Can have very black and bitter passions when roused. Another coffee?”

  “I should be getting back.” Sheila looked wistfully at the blazing coal fire. “Oh, well, yes. They can do without me. I’m pretty much a chauffeur this trip.”

  “Snow’s coming. Bad forecast. You’d better find somewhere to stay the night.”

  When Sheila returned to Drim it was to find the other two at the manse. There was a new minister since the time of the murder, a taciturn little man, Mr. Jessop, with a mousy wife.

  When Sheila arrived, he was patiently explaining that any filming on a Sunday would not go down well with the villagers.

  “That will be all right,” said Fiona quickly, noticing Jamie’s suppressed anger. “I’m sure we’ll all be glad of a break. Is there anywhere around here to have lunch?” She felt cross and cold and edgy. The manse had a stone floor, and she was sure the permafrost was creeping up her legs. She longed for a cigarette, but the minister’s wife had said she disapproved of smoking.

  “There’s nowhere here,” said the minister, “but my wife and I were just about to have lunch. You are welcome to join us.”

  �
�No, we’ll go back to Lochdubh and get something there,” said Jamie. “Care to join us, Patricia?”

  “Thank you…Jamie,” said Patricia, feeling quite elated with all this first-name camaraderie. “So everything has been arranged in Drim?”

  “It’s a start,” said Fiona, “that’s all. I’ll be back up with the production manager, accountant, lawyer and so on to get everything properly and legally agreed on.”

  As they sat together having lunch in the Napoli in Lochdubh, Sheila, looking out the window, saw white sheets of snow beginning to block out the view.

  “I think we’d better get back to the Tommel Castle Hotel and find beds,” she suggested. “We can’t travel in this.”

  Jamie finished his wine, wiped his mouth on his napkin and said evenly, “If you don’t mind, we will leave for Glasgow immediately.”

  “I really do not think a young lady like Sheila should be driving in this weather, or anyone else, for that matter,” said Patricia. “I, for one, will find accommodation at the hotel.”

  Jamie smiled at her. “Send us the bill. No, no, least we can do. Come along, Sheila.”

  “She’ll never make it,” said Fiona as she climbed into the van.

  “It’s Sheila’s job to drive,” snarled Jamie.

  So Sheila drove on up over the hills, peering desperately through the blizzard, swinging the wheel to counteract skids. They were up on the moors when the van gave a final wild skid and ploughed into a snowbank. In vain did Sheila try to reverse.

  “You’d better get out and go and find some help,” said Jamie.

  “No,” said Fiona flatly. “No one’s going anywhere. We’ll need to sit here and hope to God someone finds us.”

  Hamish decided to go to the Napoli that evening. The blizzard was still howling, and the police station felt cold and bleak.

  In the heady days when Hamish Macbeth had been promoted to sergeant, Willie Lamont, who served him in the restaurant, had been his constable. But Hamish had been demoted over the mixup of the bodies at Drim, and Willie had married the pretty relative of the restaurant owner and left the police force to join the business.

  When Hamish had ordered his food, Willie leaned against the table and said, “We had the fillum people in here.”

  “Oh, aye,” said Hamish. “I gather they’re going to use Drim.”

  “Just look at that snow!” said Willie, peering out the window. “A wee lassie to have to drive in that.”

  “What are you talking about, Willie?”

  “I heard that writer woman from Cnothan saying as how they should get beds at the hotel, but the man said that the lassie wi’ the blond hair should get on the road.”

  Hamish swore. “Damn it. That’s suicide. Keep my meal warm for me, Willie.”

  He hurried back to the police station and called the mountain rescue service, saying finally, “I don’t think they could possibly have got far.”

  “We can’t do anything until daylight, but we’ll have the chopper out at dawn.”

  “I’d better see if I can find them myself,” said Hamish gloomily, forgetting about his dinner.

  He took out a backpack, made a pot of coffee and filled a thermos flask with it. Then he cut some sandwiches and added them to it. He put on a ski suit and goggles, strapped on his snowshoes and set out, cursing under his breath and damning all townees who wittered on about nature, as if nature were some cuddly Walt Disney animal and not a wild, unpredictable force.

  He gave up after two hours and headed back to Lochdubh. Like the mountain rescue service, he, too, would have to wait until dawn.

  At four in the morning, the van engine rattled and died.

  “Get out and open the hood and see what’s up,” shouted Jamie.

  But Sheila found they were now buried so deep in snow that she could not open the door. White-faced, Fiona said, “We’ll suffocate.”

  Fiona and Sheila were in the front and Jamie behind them.

  “I’d better see if I can get something to make holes in the snow,” said Sheila. She scrambled over the seats and into the back of the van. To her delight she found a length of hollow steel tubing. What it was doing there, she had no idea.

  “I’ll open the window and push this through so we can get some air.” She handed the pipe to Fiona and then scrambled back. She rolled down the window and began to scrabble with her fingers at the solid wall of snow until she had made a tunnel. Then she took the pipe and thrust it into the tunnel and rammed it upwards. “I’ll need to draw it back in from time to time and make sure it isn’t blocked,” she said.

  “We have no heating,” wailed Fiona. “We’re all going to die. How could you have been so stupid, Jamie?”

  “It’s not me that’s stupid,” yelled Jamie. “It’s all the fault of that stupid bitch, who doesn’t know how to drive. When does it get light here?”

  “About ten in the morning in winter. And we’ll never live that long.”

  But the sky was pearly grey at nine o’clock when Hamish Macbeth set out again into the bleak white world. The snow had stopped and everything was uncannily quiet, as if the whole of the Highlands had died and now lay wrapped in a white shroud.

  He marched ahead on his snowshoes, out of Lochdubh and up to the moors, keeping to where he guessed the road was but looking always to right and left in case they had skidded off it.

  Hamish suddenly thought of Patricia and her holiday in Greece. Somewhere in the world outside this bleak wilderness the sun was shining and people were lying on the beach.

  He wanted to get as far away as possible from Sutherland. His mind drew back from the sunshine of faraway places and settled on the thought of the film company. I’d like to get away before it happens, he thought. What happens? screamed his mind, but then his sharp eyes saw a little piece of pipe sticking up above a snowbank.

  He tunnelled with his gloved hands into the snowbank, and then he saw the gleam of green metal. Found them, he thought with relief. Now let’s hope they’re alive. He heard the clatter of a helicopter in the distance.

  He scraped away at the snow until he had the back window of the van clear. He peered in. Fiona, Sheila and Jamie all seemed to be huddled together for warmth on the backseat. He knocked on the glass, but the still figures did not stir.

  He stood back and waved frantically to the approaching helicopter and then crouched down beside the snowbank made by the covered van to protect himself from the flying snow as the helicopter landed.

  Sheila struggled awake as she heard the roar of the landing helicopter. “Fiona!” she cried, shaking her companion. “We’re being rescued.”

  They both tried to rouse Jamie, but he appeared to be unconscious.

  Sheila was never to forget that moment after daylight appeared around the van and the door was wrenched open. She tumbled out into Hamish Macbeth’s arms and burst into tears. “I thought that bastard had killed us,” she sobbed. “I’ll never forgive him.”

  “Aye, well, into the helicopter with you,” said Hamish. “They’ll take you all to hospital.”

  The head of the mountain rescue team supervised the lifting of Jamie’s unconscious body into the helicopter. “This lot should be made to pay for all this expense,” he grumbled. “What sort of fools drive in the Highlands in this weather?”

  Hamish stood with his hands on his hips until the helicopter was only a little dot against the brightening sky.

  A light breeze sprang up and caressed his cheek, a breeze coming from the west. Wind’s shifted, he thought. Thaw coming. Hoods and mud. What a country!

  He made his way slowly back to Lochdubh. Smoke was rising from cottage chimneys.

  The Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, middle-aged village spinsters, were outside their cottage, the pale sunlight flashing off their glasses.

  “Just the man!” cried Jessie. “Come and shovel this snow.”

  “Away wi’ you,” said Hamish. “I’ve been up since dawn.”

  He trudged past.

  “C
all yourself a public servant!” Jessie shouted after him.

  “I call myself one verra tired policeman,” Hamish shouted back.

  And an uneasy one, he thought. I hope this film company stays away. I’ve got a bad feeling about the whole damn thing.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Do not adultery commit;

  Advantage rarely comes of it:

  Thou shall not steal; an empty feat,

  When it’s so lucrative to cheat:

  Bear not false witness; let the lie

  Have time on its own wings tofy:

  Thou shall not covet; but tradition

  Approves all forms of competition.

  —Arthur Hugh Clough

  Often one cannot look back on the best time in one’s life with any pleasure if it ends badly. So it was with Patricia Martyn-Broyd in the months leading up to the first day of filming.

  During the long winter months, a glow of fame had kept her exhilarated. Local papers had interviewed her and one national. She had given a talk to the Mothers’ Union at the church in Cnothan on writing. And although she had not been able to start on a new book, there was always that little word ‘yet’ to comfort her. When all the excitement died down, she knew she could get to work again and the words would flow.

  She arose early on the first day of filming and dressed carefully. The weather was fine, unusually fine for the Highlands of Scotland, with the moors and tarns of Sutherland stretched out benignly under a cloudless sky. She put on a Liberty print dress—good clothes lasted forever and did not date—and a black straw hat. Had the postman not decided to change his schedule and deliver the mail to Patricia’s end of the village first, then her feeling of euphoria might have lasted longer, but a square buff envelope with her publishers’ logo slid through the letter box.