by M C Beaton
“You should have phoned all that in right away,” howled Blair. “God protect me from daft, stupid Highland policemen!” Blair hailed from Glasgow. But guilt-ridden Hamish was not going to tell his superior officer that he had requested Fred to ask about and find out what he could about Kylie.
He asked if he should be at Strathbane for the questioning of Kylie Fraser, and Blair grunted, “We’ll see. Where does she work.”
“In the chemists along the street.”
“We’d best be having a word with her boss. What’s his name?”
Hamish remembered going into the shop, remembered the small fussy man. What had Kylie called him? “Cody,” he said suddenly. “Mr. Cody.”
“Well, to save you hanging around here, find out where Cody lives and get yourself over there.”
“But Kylie Fraser…”
“Och, I think we’ll do just fine withoot the great brain o’ Hamish Macbeth. And how many times do I have tae tell ye tae address me as ‘sir’?”
Hamish looked up Mr. Cody’s home address in the telephone book and took himself off. He was tortured with pictures of poor dead Fred Sutherland who would still be alive if one daft policeman had not asked him to investigate a murder.
Mr. Cody lived in a trim bungalow called Our House on the edge of the town. Hamish glanced at his watch. It was only ten at night. It seemed as if a lifetime had passed since he had left Lochdubh that evening.
He rang the doorbell and waited. It was answered by a rigidly corseted woman. He wondered vaguely why women in the north of Scotland still squeezed themselves into old-fashioned corsets while their fat sisters of the south let it all hang out.
“What’s happened?” she cried when she saw Hamish’s uniformed figure.
“I am just here to have a word with Mr. Cody.”
“What about? Is it his sister? Is it bad news?”
“No, no,” said Hamish soothingly. “Just part of our investigations.”
“You’d better come in. Charles! It’s the police for you.”
The small, fussy-looking man Hamish had seen first in the chemists came down the stairs. He had grey hair neatly combed back, round glasses and a small mouth. He was wearing a fawn cardigan over a shirt collar and tie and grey trousers and highly polished black shoes.
“How can I be of help to you, officer?” he asked. “We’ll go into the lounge. I hope the shop has not been broken into.”
“No,” said Hamish. He followed him into an overfurnished room and took off his cap.
“Mr. Fred Sutherland has been found dead, murdered.”
Mr. Cody looked startled. “Who is he?”
Hamish thought suddenly of the little table in the living room on which the phone rested in Fred’s flat. There had been a small array of medicine bottles beside the phone.
“He lived above the dentist, Gilchrist.”
“But this is terrible…terrible. Who would do such a thing? And why ask me?”
“It concerns your assistant, Kylie Fraser. Mr. Sutherland left a message on my answering machine this evening, saying he had found something out about her and asking me to call. Detectives are questioning Kylie. Can you think what it might have been that he found out?”
Mrs. Cody was sitting across from them. “I told you and told, you to get rid of that flighty piece,” she said. “She hangs about with some of the worst elements in the town.”
The pharmacist ignored his wife. “I had no trouble with her in the shop. I know she has a bit of a reputation, but during working hours, she’s pleasant and hard-working and the customers like her. She sells quite a lot of cosmetics for me.”
“And wears most of them all at once on her stupid face,”’ said his wife waspishly.
“Say Mr. Sutherland had really found out something about her, someone didn’t want us to know about,” said Hamish, “have you any idea who that someone would be?”
He shook his head. “I really don’t know.” A little wire-haired dachshund appeared from behind the sofa, went to Hamish and pressed its small shivering body against his legs. He leaned down to pat it.
“Just in the line of enquiry, can you tell me where you were this evening?”
“What time?”
“Say between eight o’clock and half past nine.”
“I had a coffee with my wife and we watched a quiz programme on television and then I took Suky out for his usual evening walk.”
“Where did you go?”
“Just up to Brady’s field at the end of the houses. Suky likes to run about the field looking for rabbits. He disappeared for quite a time and I had the devil of a job getting him back.”
“I thought Suky was a girl’s name,” said Hamish.
“Oh, well, we call him that,” said the pharmacist, pressing his hands together. “This has been a great shock. I did not know the man…what was his name?”
“Sutherland. Fred Sutherland. There is no other pharmacist in Braikie, surely.”
“No, I’m the only one.”
“I noticed Mr. Sutherland had several medicine bottles in his flat. I am sure if I go back and look at the labels, I will find the name of your shop on them.”
Mr. Cody coloured up. “You are making me feel guilty when I have no reason to feel guilty. Kylie hands me prescriptions and I make up the bottles and pills and paste labels on them. I cannot remember every name.”
“But a resident of Braikie who had probably been going to you for years!”
“I am afraid my memory is not what it was.”
“So there is nothing more you can tell us about Kylie? She did not confide in you?”
“No, of course not. We were employer and employee. She would hardly giggle to me about her boyfriends.”
“Did you know she had gone out with Gilchrist? That she claims he came on to her and that he slapped her face? She threatened to tell everyone and he said if she kept quiet he would buy her a car. But he subsequently told her that since it was her word against his, everyone would believe him.”
“This is what comes of employing a girl like that,” said Mrs. Cody. “She’s not our sort. This is what comes, Charles, from associating with a low-life creature like that.”
“It is very hard to get staff,” said Mr. Cody furiously. “Kylie has stayed longer than anyone else. The young people here prefer to stay on the dole and do a bit of moonlighting. I am sorry I cannot help you further, officer, but I know very little about Kylie.”
“I must warn you that you will be subjected to more questioning,” said Hamish.
He said goodbye to them and then drove as fast as he could to Strathbane. He was anxious to sit in on the questioning of Kylie.
He was lucky in that the detectives sent to get her had not found her at home and had finally run her to earth in the pub and that Blair had radioed them by that time with instructions not to say anything to her. Ignoring a filthy look from Blair, he took a chair in the corner of the interrogation room, just in time to hear Kylie, who was fed on a regular diet of American movies, plead the Fifth Amendment.
“This is Scotland,” growled Blair, “and no’ Chicago.”
“What’s it about?” asked Kylie, her eyes flickering to where Hamish sat in the corner.
“Fred Sutherland has been murdered.”
“What! Thon auld fellow what lived above Gilchrist?” Her face went white under her makeup. “What’s that to do wi’ me?”
“Mr. Sutherland left a message on PC Macbeth’s answering machine tonight, saying that he had found out something about you. When PC Macbeth went to see him, he found he had been brutally murdered.”
“But I was in the pub all evening. Ask anyone. Ask the barman.”
“We will. But we hae a fair idea what it was that Sutherland wanted tae tell Macbeth. You had a fling wi’ Gilchrist.”
He shouted this last accusation in her face.
To Hamish’s surprise, the colour began to come back into Kylie’s cheeks. She gave a resigned little shrug. “Well, you
knew about that.” She jerked her head in Hamish’s direction. “He knew about that.”
Blair took her all through her date with Gilchrist, about the promise of the car. He accused her of having got some of the young hoodlums she hung out with to murder the dentist. He ranted and raved, but Kylie remained immovable. She had a cast-iron alibi for the whole evening and that was that Sutherland had probably found out about her going down to Inverness with Gilchrist and that was what he wanted to tell Hamish. Why he had been murdered, she had no idea. It was up to them to find out who did it. In fact as the wearisome questioning continued, Kylie became more relaxed as Blair became more furious and frustrated.
At last she was warned to keep herself in readiness for more questioning and a policewoman was told to escort her back to Braikie.
Hamish went wearily back to Lochdubh to type up his reports—first the one on Kylie and Gilchrist which he had said he had already done, and then of his interview with Mr. Cody.
He finally went to bed and fell asleep and dreamed guilty dreams of a dead Fred Sutherland reaching up from an open grave and crying, “You could have saved me. It’s all your fault, Hamish Macbeth.”
His first thought the next morning was that he should start off at the Old Timers Club that Fred had talked about. He had said he would ask questions there. Perhaps he had a particular friend he had confided in.
His heart was heavy as he took the road to Braikie. He stopped abruptly outside the road leading up to the Smiley brothers’ croft A troll-like figure was repairing the fencing. He got down and walked up, wondering if Blair had gone mad and released the brothers.
But as he drew closer, he saw the man was neither Pete nor Stourie but of similar build and appearance and just as hairy.
“Who are you?” asked Hamish.
The man glowered at him. “I’m Jock Smiley, their cousin. Are you the bastard what put them away?”
“Me and others,” said Hamish, “and they were prepared, to murder me.”
“They neffer harmed a fly in their lives. All they did was make a wee bit o’ whisky which is every Highland-man’s right.”
“Oh, come on. Pull the other one. They had a major business. This was the bootlegging on a grand scale.”
“It’s got nothing to do with me anyway,” said Jock. “Bugger off.”
Hamish walked back to the Land Rover. What a pity there had not been proof that the Smileys had killed Gilchrist. They were the only suspects who had the strength, character and expertise to do it.
The Old Timers Club was in a smart new community centre opened, said a plaque on the front, by Princess Anne in 1991. Marvelling not for the first time at the energy of the Princess Royal, Hamish pushed open the door and went in.
Various people were sitting around, watching television, playing cards, or gossiping.
An elderly woman came forward to meet him. “Can I help you, officer?”
“I would like to talk to someone who knew Fred Sutherland well.”
“Oh, poor Fred. That’s young people for you these days. They would kill a man for twopence.”
Hamish reflected that as far as anyone had been able to judge, nothing had been stolen from Fred’s flat.
“But Mr. Tarn Carmichael was a great friend of Fred’s,” she went on.
“Is he here?”
“No, it’s a wee bit early for Tarn. But I can give you his address. He lives above the bakers just along from the chemists in the main street.”
Hamish thanked her and left. He walked along to the bakers and up a stone staircase at the side of the shop. MR. T. CARMICHAEL was on a neat name plate outside the door of a first floor flat. He knocked and waited. A little gnome of a man answered the door wearing a dressing gown over striped pyjamas. Tufts of grey hair stuck up on his head. His nose was very large and his eyes very small and sharp.
“You’ve come about Fred,” he said heavily. “Come in. You’re Macbeth.”
Hamish followed him into a cosy little living room where a coal fire blazed on the hearth.
They both sat down. “Last night,” began Hamish, “Mr. Sutherland left a message on my answering machine saying he had found out something about Kylie Fraser and then he was murdered. Did he tell you what it was?”
Old Tarn shook his head. “He was that excited, I can tell you that. He fancied himself as Inspector Poirot. Questions, questions, questions. He was so proud you had told him to help.”
“I think I helped to kill him,” said Hamish miserably.
The sharp old eyes looked at his distressed face. “Now, then, laddie,” said Tarn, “don’t be getting yourself in a bind. We’ve all got to go sometime. Fred was so happy and interested and he’d been gloomy and distressed of late. He smoked about eighty a day and I don’t think he would have kept his health much longer. I’ll miss him. There’s not that many men around the club. It’s aye the ladies who outlast us. So that made the pair of us great favourites. An interest in the ladies is something you dinnae lose with age although you can do damn all about it.”
“Was there any particular lady he was friendly with?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, Annie Tame. She’ll be in a sore state over his death.”
“And where does she live?”
“She’s got a wee bit o’ a croft house out near Mrs. Harrison, her what was soft about Gilchrist. It’s called Dunroamin, right on the road. You can’t miss it.”
“I wonder why Mr. Sutherland didn’t tell you what it was he found out,” said Hamish.
“All he said was, “I think I’m on to something, Tarn, but I’ll let you know after I’ve had a word with that policeman.” I’m telling ye, he had the time of his life.”
Hamish stood up. “I only wish he were still alive. I think I’ll have this on my conscience till the end of time.”
Tarn put one old gnarled hand on a large Bible on the table next to him. “You cannae criticise the ways o’ the Lord. If Fred had been meant to live, then he would have lived on. I gather he was hit on the head.”
“Yes, I should think he died instantly.”
“Look at it mis way, a short sharp death was a kinder way for old Fred to go than coughing out his life.”
Hamish thanked him and left. As he drove out on the road to where Annie Taine lived, he thought again about Mrs. Harrison. Perhaps he should see her again. But he went straight to the cottage called Dunroamin first.
Mrs. Annie Taine was a well-preserved seventy-something with hair of an improbable blonde. Her eyes were red with weeping. “Poor Fred,” she said when she saw Hamish. “What a dreadful thing to happen.”
She invited Hamish in. How independent these old people were, thought Hamish, the ones who managed to keep fit enough to manage a home of their own. Everything in her little living room was neat and sparkling.
“I have just come from Mr. Tarn Carmichael,” began Hamish, “and he told me you were a particular friend of Mr. Sutherland. He was interested in the death of Mr. Gilchrist and I gather he was asking questions. He left a message for me last night to say he had found out something about Kylie Fraser. Did he tell you what that something was?”
She shook her head. “He was so excited. I think he dreamed of standing up in court and giving evidence. He asked me to repair a small tear in his best suit for him because he said that would look grand in front of the television cameras. We didn’t take him seriously. I suppose we all seem a bit gaga at times. And men are such little children. Always living in Walter Mitty dreams. Let me think. He did say something.”
Hamish waited.
“He said, “The things middle-aged men get up to wi’ wee lassies, you’d never believe.””
Hamish gave a little sigh. “I suppose he was talking about Gilchrist.”
“You mean Mr. Gilchrist and Kylie. My!”
“He didn’t get anywhere with her but I suppose Fred Sutherland found out and that’s what he wanted to tell me.”
“But don’t you see,” cried Annie, “that must have been th
e reason Fred was killed! Kylie hangs out with some awful fellows at the pub.”
“There was no reason for Kylie to worry. I already knew, you see, and she knew that.”
She clasped her hands and looked at him beseechingly. “You must find out who did this wicked thing. Mr. Gilchrist was a nasty man and no one really mourns him, but everyone loved Fred.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Hamish, “but if you find out anything or remember anything, please let me know.”
She promised she would. He then went to Mrs. Hamson’s but she was not at home. He then remembered he had asked Mrs. Edwardson of the dress shop to ask about Kylie as well and thought he had better warn her.
She was there as usual in her empty shop among the droopy dresses and china dummies with 1930 faces and improbable wigs.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” she said in answer to Hamish’s warning. “I haven’t been asking about although I did warn Kylie you’d been asking about her. I’ve got so much to do here, you see.”
“Such as what?”
She bridled. “Serving customers, of course, making alterations, and taking inventory of the stock.”
Hamish’s Highland curiosity almost prompted him to ask her when she had last sold anything at all.
“So you haven’t heard anything that might be of help to me?”
“Not really, and I do not see why I should do your job for you, Officer.”
“I’ll leave you to all your customers,” said Hamish with a flash of Highland malice. “I’ll chust be fighting my way to the door through them all.”
He stood outside the shop, irresolute. Then he saw Jimmy Anderson loping down the street.
“Just the man,” hailed Jimmy. “Let’s go for a dram.”
They walked in silence to The Drouthy Crofter. The bar was empty.
Hamish knew Jimmy had to be fueled up with whisky before he could get any information out of him and so he bought him a double and said, “Let’s sit down over there. What’s the latest. Was anything stolen from Fred Sutherland’s flat?”
