Death of a Maid

by Beaton, M. C.

‘Yes, please.’

  She left and came back after a short time carrying a laden tray, which she set on a table by the window. ‘We’ll have our coffee here,’ she said. ‘I do so hate crouching over a coffee table.’

  Once she had served Hamish with scones and coffee, she asked, ‘What seems to be the problem?’

  ‘It’s Geordie McArthur up the brae from the Strathbane road. I feel he’s treating his wife right cruel and all in the name o’ religion. He doesn’t let her go out. She looks worn down. He’s jealous o’ the very air she breathes. I tackled him on it, and he said I was an emissary of Satan.’

  ‘Does he beat her?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ The scones were like bricks. He left one half-eaten on his plate. He thought the minister’s wife must have been taking baking lessons from Angela Brodie, who was a notoriously bad cook.

  ‘You mean it’s mental cruelty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. I’ll tell Murdo, and he will pay Geordie a visit. Goodness, these scones are quite terrible. I bought them this morning in Patel’s. I must be having a word with him. They had a label, “Local home baking”.’

  ‘I tell you what, pack them up,’ said Hamish. ‘I’m going into Lochdubh, and I’ll speak to Mr Patel about them.’

  ‘That’s very good of you. I’ll get a bag.’

  When she ushered him out, she said, ‘Don’t worry about Mrs McArthur. We’ll sort something out.’

  Hamish stopped at Patel’s and carried the bag into the shop. He dumped it on the counter. ‘Did Angela Brodie supply you with these scones?’

  ‘Yes, I told the local women I would sell any of their home baking they liked to give me. Mrs Brodie said baking would be a welcome change from writing.’

  ‘They’re awful,’ said Hamish. ‘I’ll buy what you’ve got left, and then you tell her you’ve cancelled the scheme.’

  ‘But some of the cakes the others bake are very good!’

  ‘Angela can only bake scones and shortbread. Tell her there’s no market.’

  Hamish bought the rest of the scones. He wrapped them tightly and dropped them in a rubbish bin on the front. Then he realized the television vans had gone and there wasn’t a reporter in sight.

  His insides cringed as he heard himself being hailed by Blair. Blair’s piggy eyes were gleaming with malice. ‘Step inside the unit, laddie. I’ve something to show you.’

  Hamish followed him in.

  ‘That’s Gannon’s desk ower there,’ said Blair.

  On the wall behind the inspector’s desk was a large poster of a highlander wearing nothing more than a tam-o’-shanter, a tartan scarf, a cheesy smile, and a large erection.

  ‘I cannae wait to see old thunder thigh’s face,’ chortled Blair, rubbing his fat hands together. ‘It’s high time she learned to put a smile on her face.’

  And she’ll wipe the smile off yours, thought Hamish. I’m not going to warn you what she’ll do. Aloud, he said, ‘I’ve got to go. Reports to write.’

  In the police station, Hamish fed Sonsie and Lugs and then went into the police office and began to work. At one point, he heard a woman’s voice raised in fury. Then all was silent. He wrote long and detailed reports, attached Mrs Barret-Wilkinson’s hotel receipt to the report on her, printed out the reports, and went out of the station to deliver them to the mobile police unit. He stopped in his tracks.

  Outside the mobile unit stood Mary Gannon, Blair and Superintendent Daviot. Daviot was holding the crumpled poster in his hand.

  ‘I don’t care if it’s a murder investigation,’ Daviot was saying to Blair. ‘You are coming back to headquarters with me. You, too, Inspector.’

  Jimmy Anderson arrived. Daviot ordered him to take charge of the investigation. He drove off with Blair and Mary following in their cars.

  Hamish told Jimmy the reason for the ruckus, and Jimmy yelled with delight. ‘The whisky’s on me, Hamish. Blair must ha’ gone mad. What if one of the press had called in at the unit, seen that poster, and photographed it? It would have been front page o’ the News of the World.’

  ‘Let’s hope he gets suspended,’ said Hamish. ‘Here are my reports, Jimmy. I would like to interview that Miss Creedy again. I want to know what guilty secret she has, if any.’

  Before Hamish drove off to Braikie, he took out his mobile phone and called Elspeth and told her about Geordie’s Land Rover. He felt he owed her some news in return for her research. ‘Don’t worry about Miss Creedy. I’ll tackle her again myself. Call at the police station this evening,’ said Hamish, ‘and I’ll see if I can let you have anything else. Where have all the press gone?’

  ‘Hostage situation in Perth. Young children involved. Luke’s rushed off to cover it, although the Perth man is furious at him invading his patch. See you later.’

  Miss Creedy’s shop was closed, and a For Sale sign was in the window. Hamish retreated to the Land Rover and looked up the local phone book. She lived, he noticed, in the same council estate as Mrs Gillespie.

  She was working in her small front garden when he arrived. She started when she saw him, made a move as if to run indoors, and then stood her ground.

  ‘I have talked and talked to the police,’ she said, her voice shrill with fear. ‘I have nothing more to say.’

  ‘Yes, you have.’ Hamish took a gamble. ‘Mrs Gillespie was blackmailing you, and I know it. I think we should go into the house.’

  Miss Creedy began to cry, great gulping sobs racking her thin body. Hamish guided her into the house.

  When she was seated, he pulled a seat up in front of her and faced her.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ he asked when she finally dried her eyes.

  ‘It was the price,’ she said. ‘I’d ordered the tourist stuff before from a factory in Strathbane. Then one day, this Chinaman called at the shop and said he had an import-export business in Glasgow. There was a factory in China that made the stuff so cheap, Scottish tourist things, in fact tourist things for a lot of countries, and he could let me have cheap stock. I thought nothing of it. It seemed all right to order from him and save a lot of money.

  ‘I had to answer the phone in the back shop one day and Mrs Gillespie had dropped in, so I asked her if she would mind the shop. The order book was open on the counter. She must have read it. She said she would tell the local newspaper that all my Scottish tourist goods came from China. The shame! I pleaded with her. She said she wouldn’t say anything if I let her win at bingo. It was horribly easy. She gave me a bingo card with numbers on it. I made sure those were the only numbers to be called.

  ‘Now it’s all come out, and you’re going to arrest me for fraud. I’d rather kill myself. I thought if I could sell the shop, I might get enough to move somewhere far from here.’

  Hamish thought rapidly. If he took her in, she would be brutally interrogated by Blair, and she would certainly be charged. Even if she did not kill herself, her life would be over. Such as Miss Creedy just couldn’t bear the shame.

  ‘Where were you the night Shona Fraser was murdered?’

  ‘I was with my sister in Inverness. I went down for a visit and stayed overnight. I gave that detective her address and phone number.’

  ‘Look, I tell you what I’ll do,’ said Hamish. ‘We’ll keep this between us. You overreacted. The locals don’t buy tourist things. They really would have thought nothing of it. When you sell your shop, you’ll work out just how much money Mrs Gillespie illegally got at the bingo, then we’ll see Father McNulty, and you’ll hand the money back.’

  She leaned forward and clasped his hands. ‘Oh, thank you! I’ve been such a fool.’

  ‘It’s amazing how decent people can be made to feel guilty over little things,’ said Hamish. ‘Mrs Gillespie preyed on that guilt. Have the police asked you about the bingo? I’m afraid I put in my report that Mrs Gillespie might have been forcing you to cheat.’

  ‘Yes, they did. But I lied, and poor Father McNulty, believing me innocent, backed
me up.’

  ‘Right. We’ll let the matter drop. They’ll have checked out your alibi, and you probably won’t have a visit from them again. So keep quiet until this is all over.’

  ‘Thank you. I shall be in your debt for the rest of my life.’ She looked at him with adoring eyes.

  ‘Enough o’ that!’ Alarmed, Hamish got to his feet. ‘Chust forget about it.’

  ‘I must repay you. You are a bachelor. I – I could bake you cakes and clean your house and –’

  ‘No! Leave me alone. It’ll look suspicious to the police if you start hanging around.’

  He left hurriedly as she followed him to the Land Rover, babbling thanks.

  Hamish drove a short distance round the next corner and stopped outside Mr Gillespie’s house.

  Mr Gillespie was at home. He looked frail but happy. ‘Come in,’ he said.

  The living room was a clutter of books and DVDs.

  Hamish removed his cap and sat down. ‘Your late wife was a blackmailer,’ he said. ‘Did she just work for those five people – Professor Sander, Mrs Fleming, Mrs Wellington, Mrs Styles and Mrs Barret-Wilkinson?’

  ‘As far as I know. One day a week each. She did say she was thinking of leaving Mrs Wellington.’

  ‘You’re not shocked your wife was a blackmailer?’

  ‘No. Man, I’d started to hate her a long while ago. Nothing awful about her would surprise me.’

  ‘You used to have a good steady job. Why did she take to cleaning?’

  ‘She liked it. I mean, she’d even clean the place to bits here. It’s a sort of power.’

  ‘Has anyone come to see you to ask about her effects? Old letters, things like that?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Did your wife have any close friends, even in the past?’

  ‘Not that I can think of.’

  Hamish gave up and left him. His thoughts turned to the formidable Mrs Styles. Was she as squeaky-clean as she seemed?

  He phoned Jimmy. ‘Any news on the postmortem on Mrs Samson?’

  ‘Aye, the procurator fiscal says it was a heart attack, pure and simple. So that’s one murder less. The mobile unit’s packing up. They feel they’ve got everything out of your village they can.’

  ‘This Mrs Styles,’ said Hamish. ‘What was her alibi?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone asked her. She’s such a formidable church person that I think the powers-that-be decided to give her a miss.’

  ‘I’ll try her,’ said Hamish, ‘but be prepared for an angry report about police harassment.’

  Hamish was informed by a neighbour that Mrs Styles was round at the church. He made his way to the Church of Scotland and pushed open the door. Mrs Styles was up in the pulpit, polishing the wings of the brass eagle which held the Bible.

  Hamish wondered whether to trick her into an admission the way he had tricked Miss Creedy, but decided against it. Such as Mrs Styles would not be easily frightened.

  In the organ loft, the organist began to play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue. Dracula music, thought Hamish as Mrs Styles grasped the brass eagle and glared down at him.

  She slowly descended the stairs from the pulpit and approached him, a can of brass polish in one hand and a cleaning rag in the other.

  ‘What is it, Officer?’ she demanded.

  ‘I wanted to ask you some more questions about Mrs Gillespie.’

  ‘What?’ She swung round and glared up at the organ loft. ‘Stop that noise,’ she shouted. ‘I can’t hear myself think.’

  The organist ceased abruptly. ‘What I was wondering . . .’ began Hamish.

  But the organist burst into a jaunty rendition of ‘These Boots Are Made for Walking’, filling the church with noise.

  ‘Outside,’ mouthed Mrs Styles.

  They walked out into the graveyard. ‘That man!’ exclaimed Mrs Styles. ‘I have complained and complained about him, but no one will listen to me. He’s a sacrilegious disgrace, that’s what he is. Now, what do you want?’

  ‘Mrs Gillespie, as has been well established, was a blackmailer. I am not suggesting for a minute that she was blackmailing you . . .’

  ‘You’d better not! I’m a respectable woman.’

  ‘Nobody said you weren’t. But Mrs Gillespie had a nasty way of poking and prying through her employers’ private papers. Did you ever catch her at it?’

  ‘Yes, I did. But I gave her a sound lecture. She was not a good cleaner, and I was going to fire her.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Because I am a Christian. And when she told me she had terminal cancer and that the work was the only thing that kept her mind off her impending death, I kept her on and was lenient with her.’

  ‘When did she tell you this?’

  ‘Six months ago. Her work had become really slack.’

  ‘Her husband is the one who has cancer. There was nothing up with her. If she’d had cancer, it would have shown in the autopsy.’

  ‘I wish I had never let that woman in my house. The more I hear about her, the more horrible she seems.’

  Hamish studied Mrs Styles. She was clear-eyed and arrogant. He was perfectly sure she was telling the truth. Perhaps, he thought, if she’d had a guilty secret, she might have been a more likeable woman.

  ‘Mrs Styles, if you hear of anything, know anything, please let me know. You can phone me at the police station in Lochdubh.’

  ‘I am an honest woman, I’ll have you know. If I did know of anything, I would have told the police already.’

  And that was that, thought Hamish gloomily.

  He returned to the Land Rover and drove off up into the hills. He finally stopped, got out, and walked to the edge of a cliff above the boiling Atlantic. The waves were hypnotic in their driving immensity as they hurled themselves against the base of the cliff. The air was full of spray. Cormorants rose up from the cliffs and then dived headlong into the sea. A puffin emerged from its burrow on the cliff top, regarded Hamish, and dived back into its burrow again.

  I’m tired of police work, thought Hamish suddenly. I’m weary of people like Blair and Mary Gannon pushing me around. It wouldn’t be any better if I went for promotion. They’d shut down the police station as quickly as anything.

  But if, he mused, I resigned, they’d put the police station up for sale. With the reward I got from the bank for stopping that robbery last year, I could put a down payment and get a mortgage. I would become a full-time crofter. Hardly any money in that, but I need very little to live on. I could do odd jobs. The locals don’t like working for the newcomers, and there are more of them moving north. I’d be free.

  He smiled as he watched the diving gulls and the flying spray.

  Hamish decided to head for Lochdubh. He was looking forward to seeing Blair’s face when he learned he was leaving the force. A little cloud crept up on the horizon of his mind. Blair would be delighted and Mary Gannon indifferent.

  He banished the cloud and walked back to the Land Rover with a spring in his step.

  Once back in his office, Hamish typed out his resignation and then drove to police headquarters in Strathbane, whistling away.

  He decided to hand his resignation in to Superintendent Daviot. Go right to the top, that was the answer.

  Helen, the secretary, threw him a look of dislike. ‘You have not got an appointment,’ she said. ‘Mr Daviot is busy.’

  The door to the superintendent’s office, which had not been quite closed, swung open to reveal Daviot putting golf balls into a paper cup.

  ‘Ah, Hamish,’ he said, ‘come in.’

  Helen leapt to bar the way. ‘I was just telling this constable that you are busy.’

  ‘That’s all right, Helen. What is it?’

  At that moment, Hamish’s mobile phone rang. He drew it out and was about to switch it off when Daviot said good-naturedly, ‘You can answer that. It might be something to do with the case.’

  Elspeth’s urgent voice came on the line. ‘You’re about to do someth
ing stupid, Hamish. Please don’t do it until you speak to me.’

  ‘How did you . . .?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m at the hotel. Come and see me.’

  Hamish rang off.

  ‘Now, Macbeth,’ said Daviot, ‘what seems to be the problem?’

  Cursing Elspeth in his mind, Hamish crushed the letter in his hand and pinned a pious look on his face. ‘I chust wondered if Mr Blair was all right. I heard a rumour he was ill.’

  Daviot’s face darkened. ‘That is good of you, but at the moment, Detective Chief Inspector Blair is suspended from duty.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I appreciate your concern, but it is nothing to do with you, so go about your duties.’

  Hamish reflected angrily on Elspeth’s psychic powers, which he only half believed in. He screeched to a halt in front of the hotel and marched in.

  Elspeth was waiting for him at the reception desk, her face anxious. ‘Come into the bar,’ said Hamish, ‘and tell me what the hell you were talking about.’

  When they were seated at a corner table, Elspeth said nervously, ‘It’s like this. I’d a sudden awful feeling you were about to leave in the middle of this case. You were fed up and worried and then you felt free.’

  ‘I wass about to hand in my resignation,’ said Hamish bleakly, the strengthening of his accent revealing he was upset. ‘I am that fed up wi’ being pushed here and ordered there by the likes o’ Blair and Gannon. And dinnae tell me it’s a’ my ain fault for not moving up the ranks. I’m frustrated by lack o’ information at every turn.’

  ‘I would only point out that a mere copper isn’t given all the information, but I won’t.’

  ‘Not Irish, are you?’ asked Hamish sarcastically.

  ‘Hamish, you’ve got to press on. You can’t walk away from this. Just think how you would feel if you did and the murders were never solved. Think of the black suspicion in Braikie. They would start to think the husband had done it. They’d make his life a misery. And what of poor Shona? Her parents came here from Glasgow yesterday. They’re devastated. They need a resolution. Let’s go down to the police station and make notes. I’ll be your Watson. Let’s go over everyone from the beginning.’