Hamish Macbeth 17 (2001) - Death of a Dustman

by M C Beaton

  “Why?” asked Hamish. “It sounds to me like a horrible marriage.”

  “Other women put up with it.” Her face was crumpled with self-pity.

  Hamish’s treacherous Highland curiosity overcame him. Instead of sticking closely to the case, he asked, “But at the beginning of the marriage, the honeymoon period, why didn’t you stop his criticisms then? Why did you just let it go on, and why did you run after him, keeping down a job and doing the housework? Couldn’t you have asked him to help?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You ask men to help in the house, and they’ll leave you.”

  Hamish was about to point out that she was the one who strayed, but he bit the remark back in time. “So what did you think when you heard about Fergus’s death?”

  “I assumed he had been up to his old tricks, making some woman’s life a misery, and got what he deserved at last. But a dustman! I couldn’t believe he had sunk so low.”

  “That’s what the drink does.”

  “I don’t want everyone knowing about me and Fergus.”

  “I’ll do what I can to keep it quiet. Do you know if he was blackmailing anyone else?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, if you think of anything that might help, let me know. I’m at the Lochdubh police station.”

  “Won’t you stay for some tea?”

  “No, I have to be going.”

  He had a feeling of escape when he walked outside.

  She had had a hard time, and yet he had not liked her one bit.

  He drove a little way and then stopped beside the Cromarty Firth and took Lugs for a walk. He turned the little he knew about the case over and over in his head. He would need to find out who did it quickly or hand those letters over to Strathbane.

  He put Lugs in the Land Rover and drove the long way back to Lochdubh, feeling tired when he arrived and hoping for a quiet evening.

  Clarry looked up from the kitchen table when he came in. His face was radiant.

  “What’s happened to you?” asked Hamish. “Win the lottery?”

  “Martha and I are getting married,” said Clarry happily.

  Hamish sat down suddenly. “I’m happy for you, Clarry, but you’re going to need to keep quiet about this.”

  “Why? I want to tell the world.”

  “You’ll be telling no one until this case is closed. Blair gets wind o’ this, and you’ll be suspect number one again. Get round there and tell Martha and the kids to be quiet about it.” The phone rang in the police office. “I’ll get that,” said Hamish. “Off you go now!”

  Hamish ran into the office and picked up the phone. At first he could not make out anything but a screaming babble coming over from the other end. Then he made out a woman’s voice shouting, “It wass the dog. You brought the evil.”

  “Kirsty!” he said with a stab of alarm. “What’s happened?”

  “He’s dead!” she screamed.

  “What happened?”

  Her voice sank to a whimper. “Blood. Blood everywhere.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Hamish slammed down the phone and fled out to the Land Rover.

  His heart was beating hard. If this turned out to be another murder, he would need to hand those letters over. He phoned to Strathbane from the Land Rover and reported a suspected murder, hoping all the time that it would turn out to be an accident.

  The Land Rover bumped over the heathery track leading to Angus Ettrik’s croft. He parked outside the cottage. The door was open. He went inside. Kirsty Ettrik was sitting on the kitchen floor, cradling her husband’s bloody head in her hands and keening.

  “Get away from him, Kirsty,” ordered Hamish, “and let me have a look.”

  He knelt down on the floor and felt for Augus’s pulse. No life. No life at all.

  He pulled out his mobile and called Strathbane again and reported a murder. He called for an ambulance, and then called Dr. Brodie and told him to come quickly. Then he took Kirsty by the shoulders and lifted her up onto a chair.

  “When did you find him?” he asked.

  Between sobs, she choked out that she had gone into the village to do some shopping and had returned and found him lying on the kitchen floor.

  Dr. Brodie was the first to arrive. He examined Angus and then shook his head. “A murderous blow,” he said.

  “Do something about Kirsty then,” said Hamish. “She’s falling apart with shock.”

  While the doctor attended to Kirsty, Hamish had a look around the flagged kitchen. A bottle of whisky was open on the table with two clean glasses standing behind it. Angus had been expecting someone. Highland hospitality decreed that the whisky bottle was always left open when a guest was expected.

  Kirsty had just swallowed two pills. Hamish went over and crouched down beside her. He said gently, “Kirsty. Angus was expecting someone. Who was it?”

  “He didn’t tell me,” she said in a trembling voice. “He was excited. He said to take myself off and not hurry back. He said our troubles were over.” And she fell to weeping again.

  “Leave her,” said Dr. Brodie quietly. “She’s too distressed.”

  The ambulance arrived. Hamish went out and told the ambulance men they’d have to wait until the police and forensic team arrived. His heart was heavy, but deep inside he still had this stubborn loyalty to the people the horrible Fergus had been blackmailing.

  The wail of sirens sounded in the distance. Hamish hoped that Blair was off work, but as the first car swept up, he saw that familiar heavyset figure in the backseat.

  §

  It was a long night. If whomever Angus had been expecting had arrived by car, it was difficult to tell, for the heathery rough track leading to the croft had not retained any tyre marks. Dr. Brodie said firmly that Kirsty was too deeply in shock to be interviewed further that night and had her taken off to hospital in Strathbane. Blair, furious, tried to protest, but Dr. Brodie’s decision was backed by the police pathologist.

  Jimmy Anderson took Hamish aside. “I dialled 1-4-7-1 on the phone to see if he had any calls, and he had the one, from a call box, the same call box which was used when Fergus got his call. What’s going on? Were they friends?”

  “He said he had no quarrel with Fergus,” said Hamish. “This is bad.”

  “Aye, they’re out combing the countryside, waking up people and asking if they saw a strange car, or any car, heading in this direction. Where’s your sidekick?”

  “I left him to man the phone at the police station,” lied Hamish, who realised with horror that he had completely forgotten about Clarry. “We can’t get much further, it seems to me, until the wife recovers enough to speak to us.”

  “Did you find anything over at Dingwall?”

  Hamish realised in that moment that he would need to let something out. He hoped Annie Robinson would forgive him.

  “Blackmail!” exclaimed Jimmy. “Man, now there’s something. Say Fergus was murdered for blackmailing someone, and Angus knew who it was, and took over where Fergus left off, it stands to reason we’re looking for the same murderer.”

  “Aye, it looks like that.”

  “So,” said Jimmy, his foxy face alight, “he could have maybe—Fergus, I mean—have been blackmailing more than one. And how would he have found out anything, hey? By raking through the garbage to see if folks had got everything into the right containers. Better tell Blair.”

  Hamish waited for the inevitable. He was standing outside the cottage when Blair barrelled truculently up to him. “What’s this about that woman over in Invergordon?” he snarled. “Where’s your report?”

  “I had just got back and wass going to type it up,” said Hamish, “when I got the call from Kirsty.”

  “You get back down there and start typing. I want all of it. We’ll pull her in for questioning.”

  Hamish drove off. His heart was heavy. Just because he had not liked Annie Robinson, just because she did not live in Lochdubh, he had turned her over
to the police.

  Clarry was just returning to the police station when Hamish drove up. “Get yourself up to Angus Ettrik’s,” said Hamish. “He’s been murdered. See if they need you.”

  Clarry hurried to his old car, which he kept parked out on the road. Hamish went into the police office, switched on the computer and began to type while the pale dawn rose outside the window. When he had finished, he sent over his report and decided to get some sleep. He washed and changed into civilian clothes and decided to sleep with them on in case he was roused by Blair. Blair would no doubt howl at him for not being in uniform, but he did not want to sleep in all that scratchy serge. With Lugs curled against his side, he fell into a deep sleep, only struggling awake at ten in the morning as he heard a knock at the kitchen door.

  The banker’s wife, Mrs. McClellan, stood there. “Come in,” said Hamish. “I was just about to make some coffee. Like some?”

  “No, I won’t be long. I remembered one little thing.”

  “What’s that?” asked Hamish, plugging in the kettle. He felt he needed a cup of strong coffee to help him wake up properly.

  “The last time Fergus Macleod called to see me, he was quite genial—I mean, he wasn’t his usual sneering self. He was bragging how he would soon be getting out of Lochdubh to start a new life. That’s it, I’m afraid.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “No, but it occurred to me that what he might get out of me was hardly enough to enable him to start a new life somewhere else. And it almost seemed as if he had lost interest in what I could give him. I mean, maybe he’d found someone rich.”

  “I’d best ask around again,” said Hamish. “Have you heard? Angus Ettrik has been murdered.”

  “The crofter?”

  “Himself.”

  “That’s terrible. What evil’s come to Lochdubh?”

  “Whatever it is,” said Hamish grimly, “Fergus Macleod did something to bring it here.”

  §

  He had just changed into his uniform when Clarry arrived, tired and unshaven. “Phew!” he said, sinking down into a chair in the kitchen. “That Blair had me going round all the outlying crofts. I’m knackered. I told Blair I’d nothing, and he said you were to get out there and go round everyone again.”

  Hamish looked gloomily out of the window. A steady drizzle was falling, what the sturdy locals called ‘a nice, soft day.’

  He put on his oilskin and said to Clarry, “Do me a favour and walk Lugs, or let him into the garden. I’ll probably be away all day.”

  Hamish decided to drive up to Elspeth MacRae’s croft. She was a widow and ran her croft single-handed. She had a nose for gossip and her land bordered Angus’s.

  §

  Elspeth was returning home with her dogs just as he drove up. She was a tall, leathery woman with cropped grey hair. “Bad business, Hamish,” she said, walking up to meet him as he got down from the Land Rover.

  “Yes, that’s why I’m here. Did you hear anything, notice anything? Anyone calling on Angus?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t have much to do with him. We had that row over the peats.”

  Hamish nodded. Angus had been digging into Elspeth’s peats, and she had complained about him to the Crofting Commission. “Mind you, Kirsty and I often had a word if he wasn’t around. I had no quarrel with her. That fat policeman of yours, the one that’s been chasing after Martha Macleod, was up here during the night asking questions.”

  “So there’s nothing you can tell me?”

  “There’s someone might help you. I just remembered after your man had gone.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “Sean Fitz is back. He called here two days ago for a cup of tea. He might have called on Angus.”

  Hamish brightened. Sean Fitz was the last of the genuine Highland tramps, roving through the mountains and moors.

  “I’d best drive around and look for him,” he said. “Did he say where he was headed?”

  “No, but he usually stays around the same area for a bit.”

  Hamish drove slowly around the network of one-track roads joining the outlying crofts, and then out on the main Lochdubh-Strathbane road. The rain had stopped and the clouds had rolled back from the mountains. The blazing heather on either side of the road glittered with raindrops. He rolled down the window and breathed in the scent of wild thyme, heather and pine. The magnificence of the glorious landscape reduced the nasty little doings of men to insignificance.

  And then, as he crested a hill, he saw the shambling figure of the tramp on the road ahead of him. He drove up and stopped just in front of Sean and jumped down.

  Sean was a bearded old man with young eyes in a wrinkled and tanned face. He was dressed in the layers of clothing he wore winter and summer.

  Hamish hailed him. “I need some information, Sean.”

  “It wisnae me what took thon trout out o’ the colonel’s river,” said Sean, backing away.

  “I’m not after poachers,” said Hamish. “Did you know Angus Ettrik had been murdered?”

  “Him, too? My, the Highlands are becoming as violent as the cities. I wass up there the ither day. The wife gave me tea and a bit of money for chopping kindling.”

  “Did you see Angus?”

  “No, he wass out somewheres.”

  “Did Kirsty say anything about them maybe getting some money from somewhere?”

  “No, Hamish. Herself said as how the bank might be going to take the croft away. She only gave me a wee bit o’ money for the work, but I felt right guilty at taking it.”

  “You see things. You hear things. You wander around. Let’s take Fergus, for instance. Two days before he was found, he disappeared after getting a phone call. No one saw him. No one saw him meet anyone. You didn’t see anything?”

  Sean hesitated. “I am not interested in your poaching,” said Hamish sharply. “I can see by your face that you saw or heard something.”

  “If you get me for this, Hamish Macbeth, I’ll neffer trust you again.”

  “Go on, Sean. I’m getting desperate.”

  “I wass up at the river…”

  “The Anstey?”

  “Aye, I was on the colonel’s estate…You will not be…?”

  “No, I will not be. Go on, man.”

  “I heard the cracking of twigs a bit downstream, and I thought it might be the water bailiff. I was guddling for the trout.”

  Hamish nodded. He knew Sean meant that he hadn’t a rod; he had been standing in the shallows of the stream, hoping to hook a trout out of the water with his bare hands.

  “I moved out of the river and edged back up the bank. Through the trees I could see the pair of them.”

  “Who?”

  “It wass the colonel and that dustman. The colonel, he wass red in the face. I couldnae hear what wass being said, chust the angry voices. I wass too far away.”

  “So what you saw was Colonel Halburton-Smythe and Fergus Macleod having a row?”

  “Aye, I thought maybe Fergus had been poaching and the colonel had caught him at it.”

  “Thanks, Sean,” said Hamish. He dug out his wallet and took out a ten-pound note. “Keep this to yourself. When was this?”

  “I’m bad at dates and time, but I ‘member it must have been around the time afore Fergus was found, for I ‘member reading it in the papers.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. Fergus wisnae popular but you must know that yoursel’.”

  “Right, Sean. I’ll look into it.”

  Hamish climbed into the Land Rover, his mind racing. After Fergus’s death, the police had appealed for anyone with any information to come forward. The colonel must have heard it.

  He drove to the Tommel Castle Hotel. He glanced in at the windows of the gift shop and saw Priscilla behind the counter. He parked the vehicle and walked into the gift shop.

  “On your own?” he asked.

  “As you can see,” said Priscilla. She was wearing a loose, scarlet cashmere ca
rdigan over a white silk blouse and tailored tweed skirt. The gold bell of her hair framed her calm features. Hamish had a sudden, irrational desire to shake her.

  “Where’s your friend?”

  “Jerry? He’s gone back to London.”

  Hamish glanced covertly at her hands. Ringless.

  “Do you want coffee?” Priscilla indicated the coffee machine in the corner.

  “No, I’m here on official business.”

  She raised a pair of perfect eyebrows.

  “Do you get those shaped?” asked Hamish.

  “What?”

  Hamish flushed slightly. “Never mind. Is your father about?”

  “He’s over at the hotel. Why?”

  “He was seen by the tramp, Sean, rowing with Fergus Macleod.”

  “But that would be about the hotel garbage. Remember I told you we had to get a private contractor to pick it up?”

  “But that was after he had disappeared.”

  “Hamish, my father is not a murderer.”

  “But he was rowing with Fergus and never said a word about it.”

  “You know what he’s like. Fergus was probably poaching. You all poach. Even you, Hamish.”