Hamish Macbeth 17 (2001) - Death of a Dustman

by M C Beaton

  §

  As Hamish slept with Lugs curled against his side and through the wall Clarry, unaware of the drama, slept as well, the wind of Sutherland rose outside. It hurtled down the waterfront. Paper danced elaborate entrechats in the air. Paper stuck to fences and garden walls. Paper hung from lamp standards. And then, as if satisfied with the chaos it had caused, the wind roared away to the east and a quiet dawn rose above Lochdubh.

  §

  Mrs. Freda Fleming sat at her dressing table in the morning, anxiously surveying her makeup. It was certainly very heavy, but she would look all right on camera. She had tried to contact Hamish Macbeth the day before but had failed to get him. She had then phoned Callum, who had reported that the village looked clean and neat. Anyway, she had faxed Macbeth exact instructions of what was to be expected. She hoped he had found a photogenic child to present the bouquet. It was a pity the London papers had shown no interest, but Grampian television had said they would cover the Greening of Lochdubh. The local papers were coming, and some of the Glasgow newspapers were sending their local men. She had memorised her speech over and over again. She had been worried about the weather, but it was a beautiful morning.

  §

  Hamish was awakened by a ferocious knocking at the door. He opened it and found an excited Jimmy Anderson on the step. “Come on, Hamish, and see the fun. That secretary, Miss Stathos, is yelling and shouting in Greek.”

  “Be with you in a minute.”

  Hamish washed and dressed. He went out of the station and then blinked at the mess of paper all over Lochdubh. Well, they could all clear it up later.

  §

  Tom Stein groaned as his alarm clock went off. He covered the Highlands for the Glasgow Morning News. He had a sour mouth and a blinding hangover, and he remembered he was supposed to get over to Lochdubh and cover some dreary cleanup campaign thought up by that poisonous Fleming woman. He shaved and dressed and then drank two Alka Seltzers, wincing at the noise as the tablets fizzed in the water. In this modem age, he thought bitterly, Alka Seltzer should by now have invented a silent tablet.

  He was a middle-aged man with a thin face marred by lines of disappointment. As an elderly actor will take part in yet another crowd scene and dream of glory, so Tom dreamed of having a scoop, having his name on the front of the London papers. But he suffered disappointment after disappointment. Hadn’t he sent the first reports of the murder in Lochdubh? But the Glasgow Morning News had sent up their own man, and anything he had written had been incorporated into the staff man’s story. Tom was a freelancer. He sometimes got a few items in the other papers, but only the Glasgow Morning News paid him a retainer.

  He drank a cup of black coffee and shuddered. He certainly wasn’t going to hit the headlines with this one. There was a knock at the door of his little bungalow, situated in what had once been a respectable suburb of Strathbane but which was going rapidly downhill.

  It was his photographer, an equally tired and perpetually disappointed man called Paul Anstruther.

  “You ready to go?” asked Paul.

  “May as well, but if they publish one line, I’ll shoot myself in surprise.”

  §

  “Nothing,” said Jimmy in disgust. “But thanks to you, Hamish, we can charge him with intent to ruin the Tommel Castle. But, man, we cannae charge him with murder.”

  A crowd had gathered to watch the police activity. Jimmy had actually arrived at six in the morning. It was now eight and Lochdubh was coming alive.

  Josie Darling noticed Geordie Liddell standing at the edge of the crowd in full Highland regalia. She went up to him. “You off to the Games?”

  “Yes,” said Geordie. “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t know. Will you be tossing the caber?”

  “Aye, and throwing the hammer.”

  “Is the hammer very heavy?”

  “Weighs a ton,” said Geordie. “I’ve got it in the Jeep. I’ll show you.”

  He went to his Jeep and returned swinging the long, heavy, metal hammer. “Try lifting it, Josie.”

  “I can’t.” She giggled. “My, but you’re strong!”

  Geordie grinned and flexed his muscles under his green velvet jacket. Then he heard Hamish shouting, “I hear a helicopter.” The crowd fell silent.

  §

  “It’s so damn early in the morning,” groaned Tom Stein as he and his photographer got into a minibus marked PRESS.

  “Are we the only ones?” asked Paul Anstruther.

  “Looks like it,” said Tom wearily. “That biddy Fleming is trying to plead with them to wait for more, but it’s just you and me.”

  The cavalcade moved off. In the front limousine, Mrs. Freda Fleming was doggedly trying to look on the bright side. “I know that at the moment we only have the representatives from the Glasgow Morning News, ” she said to the small figure of the provost, who was sitting next to her. “But mark my words, the others will be making their own way there.”

  The provost, Mr. Jamie Ferguson, shifted uneasily. “It’s an awful lot of money we’ve been putting out on this. The Labour Party is cracking down on wasteful councils. They’ll have something to say about this.”

  “It isn’t really costing anything,” said Mrs Fleming. “I mean, I sent the constable full instructions. Lochdubh will bear the expense of the celebrations.”

  “If I know Lochdubh,” said the provost gloomily, “then they’ll send us a bill.”

  “They can try,” snapped Mrs. Fleming. She rapped on the glass. “Go faster, driver, we’re running late.”

  “I’m in trouble, Freda,” said the provost. “The other members of the council want rid of you.”

  “They cannot sack me. I am an elected Labour representative.”

  “Aye, but they want to give the job of environment officer to someone else.”

  “That is ridiculous. To whom?”

  “To Jessie Camber.”

  “What? That blowsy blonde who goes around flashing her tits? Over my dead body.”

  The provost sighed and settled down into an escapist dream in which the murderer of Lochdubh, who everyone knew was still at large, would murder Mrs. Freda Fleming. But the dream didn’t last very long and reality set in. What on earth had ever possessed him to spend a night with her? She would never let him forget it. He shuddered at the thought of his wife finding out. His wife was remarkably like Mrs. Fleming, being well-upholstered and domineering.

  §

  In the press bus, the photographer, Paul, was saying to Tom, “The next time I’m sent on a job like this, I won’t even bother to put film in the camera.”

  “Come on,” said Tom. “Something could happen.”

  “You’re always saying that,” replied Paul. “You’ve been saying it for years.”

  “Look, there’s been two murders in Lochdubh. Maybe we could find out a story.”

  “Huh,” snorted Paul. But he checked his camera and, by force of habit, focused it out the window. A dismal-looking sheep stared back.

  §

  The crowd on the waterfront at Lochdubh stared up at the helicopter. It came lower. They could clearly see Ionides sitting beside the pilot. The pilot pointed down.

  “They’re getting away,” shouted Hamish as the helicopter rose and began to head out over the loch.

  “Stand back!” yelled Geordie in a great voice.

  He began to swing his long hammer. Round and round he went, faster and faster, the skirts of his kilt swinging out. Then he let go.

  The hammer sailed up and towards the helicopter in a great arc. It was a throw that was to be talked about for years to come. The hammer sheered straight through two of the rotary blades on the helicopter.

  The helicopter spiralled down over the loch. Hamish could see the sheer terror on Ionides’s face as the craft struck the black waters of Lochdubh. The pilot got his door open just before the helicopter struck the water, Ionides seemed trapped in his seat. The last they saw of him he was struggling frantically wi
th the door as the water flooded in.

  Hamish pulled off his navy blue police sweater and shirt and dragged off his trousers and unlaced his boots and dived into the loch.

  Then Jimmy Anderson could see Hamish struggling with the pilot. “Help him,” he shouted to his men. But at that moment Hamish rose in the water and punched the pilot full on the chin and then dragged the unconscious body towards the shore, where five policemen ran down to help him.

  “What about the other one?” panted Hamish.

  “We’ll need to get the divers down,” said one.

  “What’s going on?” shouted Tom as their minibus stopped on the waterfront. Paul darted out the bus with his camera. He pushed and elbowed his way through people in the crowd, who were staring up at a helicopter. Then he saw them back off as Geordie began to swing his hammer. He clicked and clicked. His heart beat with excitement. Then he took the picture that was to go right round the world as the hammer sailed through the rotary blades of the helicopter.

  Behind him, Tom’s impeccable shorthand was flying across the pages of his notebook.

  Paul was now clicking away at Hamish and the pilot in the loch. He ran down the beach to catch pictures of Hamish landing the unconscious pilot on the beach. As Hamish wearily turned to walk up the beach, in his vest and underpants, Paul, who had moved behind him to get another shot of the pilot, suddenly saw that Hamish had a large hole in the back of his underpants. That photo was to appear on the front of a London tabloid under the heading, ARE WE PAYING OUR POLICE ENOUGH?

  Tom ran up to him. “Get up there,” he shouted. “Get the Fleming woman’s face.”

  Screams were sounding along the waterfront. Mrs. Freda Fleming was blind to the mayhem that was going on around her. She was staring at the mess that was Lochdubh. Paper was festooned everywhere.

  She saw Hamish approaching and ran up to him, screaming, “You bastard! You did this deliberately!” As Paul gleefully raised his camera, she smacked Hamish Macbeth full across the face. With a reflex action that Hamish was to regret for a long time, he smacked her back, and she burst into noisy sobs.

  §

  It was to be a long day. Geordie was under arrest. “Why?” demanded Hamish furiously. “All he did was stop a murderer from escaping.”

  “Hamish,” said Jimmy patiently, “we still have no proof that Ionides murdered anyone.”

  “I ordered Geordie to throw that hammer,” said Hamish.

  “You what?”

  “I ordered Geordie to throw that hammer,” lied Hamish stubbornly.

  “Man, do you know what you are saying? I’ll need to suspend you from your duties, and Blair will have you off the force.”

  The two were in police headquarters in Strathbane.

  “Get back to your police station,” said Jimmy. “We’re about to grill the Stathos woman, and you’d better pray she cracks and comes up with something.”

  Priscilla called round at the police station that evening to find Hamish moodily sitting in his living room with his dog on his lap.

  “I did knock,” said Priscilla.

  “Sit down,” said Hamish wearily. “I’m in bad trouble.”

  “But you got that pilot, and the divers fished Ionides’s corpse out of the water.”

  “There’s no proof he committed either of the murders. Blair’s interviewing the pilot and that secretary. I hope one of them comes up with something. It’s the first time in my life I’ve prayed that Blair is at his nastiest. Then that Fleming woman. God, she lands in the middle of a police operation, and all she can do is scream about the mess of paper in Lochdubh. What’s that box?”

  “It’s my sewing kit. Hamish, television wasn’t there but a photographer was. So television news has been showing still photographs of Geordie throwing the hammer, but there was another photograph of you on the beach with your bum hanging out of your underpants.”

  Hamish covered his face with his hands. “What next?”

  Priscilla laughed. “Didn’t Mrs. Macbeth always tell you to wear decent underwear in case you had an accident? Bring your stuff in and let’s go through it.”

  “I am not in the mood to haff my underwear examined,” said Hamish huffily.

  “Oh, go on. We’re not doing anything else. I’m afraid to tell you that Clarry is up at the hotel. I think you’ve lost a policeman.”

  “What does it matter? I’ve lost my job.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve got the croft and my sheep.”

  “That won’t support you, and you’ll need to leave the police station. You can stay at the hotel if you like until you figure something out.”

  “That’s good of you, but I think your father will have something to say about that.”

  “He’s so relieved you didn’t tell the police about him that he’ll be happy to let you sleep anywhere. You didn’t, did you?”

  Hamish shook his head. “I’m glad I’m popular with someone. Someone’s at the door. Could you see who it is and send them away, Priscilla?”

  “Right. Wait there.”

  He could hear the murmur of Priscilla’s voice and then the shutting of the kitchen door. She came back bearing a parcel and a large card. Hamish nudged Lugs off his lap and took the card and parcel. The card had a picture of an improbable Highland scene which looked more like Brigadoon than reality. The message simply said, “To Hamish, from the villagers of Lochdubh.”

  Hamish opened up the parcel and found himself looking down at six sets of clean underwear.

  “Well, well,” said Priscilla. “I won’t be needing my sewing kit after all!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more by-path meadows, where you may innocently linger, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave.

  —Robert Louis Stevenson

  Four weeks had passed since Geordie had brought down the helicopter, and Hamish was still suspended. He had spent hours over in Strathbane being interviewed by a police inquiry team. Investigations into Ionides’s company were still going on. The pilot turned out to have a long record of violent crime. His last had been for armed robbery. He had faked an illness and escaped from the prison hospital. He was still under arrest, but remained silent.

  Geordie, thanks to Hamish sticking to his story that he had ordered Geordie to bring down the helicopter, was a free man. His case had been heard at the sheriff’s court in Strathbane, and Hamish had testified that Geordie had been only acting on instructions.

  Hamish had been given a rocket by the sheriff for irresponsible policing.

  Clarry had worked out his notice, but was still living at the police station until such time as he considered it decent to move in with Martha.

  Hamish fished the blackmailing letters out of the bottom drawer of his desk and decided to put them in the stove. The weather had turned chilly and blustery. He had lit the wood fire in the kitchen and was waiting for the wood to catch before he dropped the letters in when the phone rang.

  He put the letters on the kitchen table and went to answer it. It was Jimmy Anderson at the other end of the line, sounding very excited. “He’s broken, Hamish.”

  “Who?”

  “The pilot, Ian Simpson. He says he wants to do a deal.”

  “Oh, aye? And you don’t do deals.”

  “No, but we promised him a favourable trial.”

  “So what has he said?”

  “He says that Ionides killed Fergus. He told Fergus he would meet him up on the grazings and pay him ten thousand pounds. He bashed his head in and then got Ian, the pilot, to go back with him in the middle of the night. They wrapped the body in one of the sheets from the hotel. They were going to dump it in the loch when they got as far as the Curries’ cottage. Ionides said, “Let’s dump the bastard in that bin. I’m sick of carrying it.””

  “And then they did Angus?”

  “There’s the odd thing. He stubbornly says that Angus never came near
Ionides. But he says Ionides was trading drugs. That was the real reason for the hotel so far north. They thought it would be an excellent, quiet landing place. There was a raid on all his hotels during the night and they found drugs in the cellar of the one in Aberfoyle, so they’ve arrested the brother. Miss Stathos is crying and wailing and sticking to her story that she knew nothing about it. Mind you, she says he was fanatical about fishing, any kind of fishing, and was determined to get the Tommel Castle Hotel. Things look better for you, Hamish. You’re to attend a special meeting this afternoon at two o’clock.”

  “Another dressing down,” said Hamish.

  “Aye, but take my advice, laddie, and look meek and humble.”

  After he had rung off, Hamish went into the kitchen and looked thoughtfully at the letters. Surely Ionides had killed Angus. It couldn’t be anyone else. But he picked up the package and carried it through to the office and put it back in the drawer.

  He brushed and pressed his uniform and wondered what awaited him in Strathbane. He hoped no one had reported that Clarry was still living at the police station or he would be in worse trouble than he was.

  Detective Chief Inspector Blair was a happy man. Hamish Macbeth would be removed from his job. No more would that lanky Highlander plague him. He wished now that he hadn’t turned the case over to Jimmy Anderson. But he had been feeling weak and shaky after his last bout of drinking and his subsequent treatment in hospital.

  He had been off the booze for six weeks now, and he was feeling fit and well. It all went to show he could take it or leave it. Still, the sacking of Hamish Macbeth demanded some sort of celebration. He went to his usual pub and virtuously ordered a glass of tonic water with ice and a slice of lemon.

  §

  Hamish stood in front of a long desk and faced his judges. Superintendent Daviot was there, flanked by two hard-faced investigators from the Internal Investigations Department, the chief constable, and Daviot’s secretary, Helen, who looked happy because she disliked Hamish almost as much as Blair did.