Death of an Outsider

by M C Beaton

  ‘He’s admitted he was jealous,’ said Jenny cheerfully. ‘He really knows my paintings are good. I really don’t like that one, Hamish.’

  ‘Well, I’ll take it,’ said Hamish. But he privately thought it was a pity that Jenny did not realize her ex-soon-to-be non-ex husband had been right in the first place and was probably only being tactful now.

  The small Lochdubh bus came screeching to a halt outside the post office as he stood there an hour later with his bags, his painting, and his dog.

  The driver threw him an evil look and went off to buy cigarettes.

  Hamish climbed on the bus, put his luggage on one seat and sat on the other with Towser beside him. The whole town was swimming in lazy golden light and people walked up and down aimlessly, looking drugged in the unfamiliar warmth.

  A car drew to a halt beside the bus. Hamish looked idly down at the driver who was climbing out and his heart gave a painful lurch. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. He stared straight ahead, his heart racing.

  She poked her head in the door of the bus. ‘Want a lift to Lochdubh, copper?’ she called. Towser threw himself on Priscilla, uttering ecstatic yips of welcome.

  ‘Aye, that’ll be grand, Priscilla,’ said Hamish, his eyes wary.

  He tried not to look at her, but was painfully aware of slim, stylish elegance and golden hair.

  He wrestled with his bags and painting and climbed down from the bus. Priscilla opened the boot. ‘Put your bags in there, Hamish,’ she said. ‘What’s that parcel? It looks like a painting.’

  ‘It is,’ said Hamish. ‘I’d better put it in the back seat so it disnae get damaged.’

  ‘Won’t Towser sit on it?’

  ‘No, he’ll sleep on the floor. You know that, Priscilla.’

  ‘Yes, I know that.’ She straightened up after arranging his bags in the boot and slammed down the lid. Her eyes were clear and untroubled but slightly questioning.

  ‘You haven’t given me much of a welcome,’ she said.

  ‘I’m glad to see you,’ said Hamish formally. Then he went and climbed into the passenger seat, after putting Towser and the painting in the back of the car.

  Priscilla was about to drive off when she suddenly switched off the engine and said, ‘There’s some woman running towards us. Do you know her?’

  ‘It’s Jenny,’ said Hamish. He rolled down the window.

  ‘I’m glad I caught you,’ panted Jenny. ‘You forgot your sandwiches and Thermos.’ She peered across Hamish at Priscilla.

  ‘Priscilla, this is Jenny Lovelace. Jenny, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe.’

  Priscilla reached across Hamish and shook hands. Then Jenny blushed furiously. ‘Oh, I’ve put oil paint on your hand. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Priscilla, opening her handbag and taking out a packet of tissues and a bottle. ‘I have some nail varnish remover that will take it off.’

  She would, thought Hamish glumly.

  ‘Can … can I have a word in private with you, Hamish?’ asked Jenny.

  Hamish slid out of the car. Priscilla watched as Jenny said something and then threw her arms around Hamish’s tall figure and hugged him fiercely. Priscilla felt silly and miserable and wished she had not come. She had phoned Cnothan and had learned Hamish was leaving that day. A woman had answered the phone in the police station. Probably Jenny.

  ‘That must have been who phoned yesterday when you were out,’ whispered Jenny. ‘I forgot to tell you. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right, Jenny. Goodbye. Write to me.’

  Hamish climbed back in the car. Jenny’s eyes filled with tears, and she turned and ran away up the main street.

  Priscilla let in the clutch, and the Volvo moved off smoothly. She was wearing a tailored tweed jacket, worn open over a white shirt, with a slim heather wool skirt and sheer tights ending in sensible brogues. The bell of her fair hair fell smoothly on either side of the classic oval of her face.

  ‘I came because I was feeling sorry for you,’ said Priscilla. ‘Cnothan is not my favourite place. But you appear to have been happy here.’

  Hamish grunted and folded his arms.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Local artist.’

  ‘That her painting you’ve got in the back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Priscilla drew to a stop outside Cnothan Game. ‘I’d like to see it,’ she said.

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Hamish. At that moment, he didn’t care what she did. She had no right to barge coolly back into his life and open up all the old wounds.

  Priscilla opened the parcel carefully and then studied the painting for a long time.

  ‘Poor Jenny,’ she said. ‘The murder must have been an awful experience.’

  Hamish felt a sudden rush of affection for Priscilla, for that quick sensitivity of hers that was so often masked by the sophisticated outward appearance.

  ‘She’s all right now,’ he said, as Priscilla replaced the painting and climbed back into the driver’s seat. ‘She’s going back to Canada to remarry her husband.’

  Priscilla shot him a look. She felt lighthearted and happy.

  At that moment, Helen Ross came strolling out into the yard of Cnothan Game. She was wearing a leaf-green wool mini that exposed miles of sheer-stockinged leg. She swayed towards them.

  ‘Drive on,’ said Hamish urgently.

  ‘Looks like the local siren,’ said Priscilla, speeding off.

  ‘More like the local Lady Macbeth.’

  ‘Lady … Oh, I see. For a moment I thought … Never mind. Look, let’s go up on the moors and eat some of Jenny’s sandwiches. I’m starving.’

  Soon they were sitting on top of a rise overlooking Cnothan.

  ‘Out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death,’ said Hamish.

  ‘You had a nightmare of a time, didn’t you, Hamish?’ said Priscilla, pouring coffee and opening up packets of sandwiches. ‘Tell me about it.’

  Hamish talked and talked while Priscilla listened. He found himself telling her about the strange atmosphere of Cnothan, about how he kept losing his temper, about the murder, but not about the lobsters. The more he talked, the lighter and happier he felt. He could feel his old lazy, easygoing self returning.

  When they drove off, the bond of friendship was restored, and along with it the old seductive feeling of not being alone in the world any longer, the relief of being able to communicate to someone who knew exactly what you were thinking and feeling.

  But as they neared Lochdubh, Priscilla broke off from a long description of the irritations and boredoms of the hat shop to say crossly, ‘What are you thinking of, Hamish Macbeth? You stopped listening to me exactly five minutes ago.’

  ‘I was wondering, Priscilla … did you eat any lobster when you were in London?’

  ‘Did I …? Sometimes I think you are just plain mad, Hamish Macbeth. Oh, I know what it is, you’re scrounging again. Very well, you win. Priscilla shall cook Hamish a lobster for his dinner.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Hamish with a shudder. ‘I cannae thole the beasts.’

  Priscilla slowed the car to a halt and looked at Hamish. She remembered seeing Hamish eat lobster thermidor at the Lochdubh Hotel with great relish. There was a blackness emanating from Hamish. Skeleton, she thought suddenly. Mainwaring was killed at Cnothan Game and Fish Company. Jamie Ross was famous for his lobsters. Scratches on the skeleton.

  She put a hand on his knee.

  ‘We’ll never eat lobster again, Hamish’

  Hamish let out a long sigh. ‘Quick on the uptake, aren’t you? I’d forgotten that.’

  ‘Dinner at the Lochdubh on me,’ said Priscilla firmly. ‘They do a very good vegetarian salad.

  If you enjoyed Death of an Outsider, read on for the first chapter of the next book in the Hamish Macbeth series …

  Chapter One

  ‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said a

  spider to a fly: ‘Tis the prettiest little

  parlour that ever you did spy.
’

  – Mary Howitt

  It was another day like the morning of the world.

  Police Constable Hamish Macbeth, his dog at his heels, sauntered along the waterfront of Lochdubh, a most contented man. For two whole weeks the weather had been perfect.

  Above was a cerulean sky and before him the bustling little harbour, and beyond that the blue of the sea, incredible blue, flashing with diamonds as the sun sparkled on the choppy surface of the water. Around the village rose the towering mountains of Sutherland, the oldest in the world, benign in the lazy light. Across the sea loch was Gray Forest, a cool dark cathedral of tall straight pines. Early roses tumbled over garden fences and sweet peas fluttered their Edwardian beauty in the faintest of breezes. On the flanks of the mountains, bell heather, the early heather that blossoms in June, coloured the green and brown camouflage of the rising moors with splashes of deepest pink. Hairbells, the bluebells of Scotland, trembled at the roadside among the blazing twisted yellow and purple of vetch and the white trumpets of convolvulus.

  As Hamish strolled along, he noticed the Currie sisters, Jessie and Nessie, two of Loch-dubh’s spinsters, tending their little patch of garden. The garden bore a regimented look. The flowers were in neat rows behind an edging of shells.

  ‘Fine day,’ said Hamish, smiling over the hedge. Both sisters straightened up from weeding a flower bed and surveyed the constable with disfavour.

  ‘Nothing to do as usual, I suppose,’ said Nessie severely, the sunlight sparkling on her thick glasses.

  ‘And isn’t that the best thing?’ said Hamish cheerfully. ‘No crime, no battered wives, and not even a drunk to lock up.’

  ‘Then the police station should be closed down. The police station should be closed down,’ said Jessie, who repeated everything twice over like the brave thrush. ‘It’s a sin and a shame to see a well-built man lazing about. A sin and a shame.’

  ‘Och, I’ll find a murder jist for you,’ said Hamish, ‘and then you really will have something to complain about.’

  ‘I hear Miss Halburton-Smythe is back,’ said Jessie, peering maliciously at the constable. ‘She’s brought some of her friends from London to stay.’

  ‘Good time to come here,’ said Hamish amiably. ‘Lovely weather.’

  He smiled and touched his cap and strolled on, but the smile left his face as soon as he was out of sight. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe was the love of his life. He wondered when she had come back and who was with her. He wondered when he would see her. Anxiety began to cast a cloud over his mind. It seemed amazing that the day was still perfect: the sun still shone and a seal rolled about lazily in the calm waters of the bay.

  He tried to recover his spirits. The air smelled of salt and tar and pine. He walked on to the Lochdubh Hotel to see if he could scrounge a cup of coffee.

  Mr Johnson, the manager, was in his office when Hamish walked in. ‘Help yourself,’ he said with a jerk of his head towards the coffee machine in the corner. He waited until Hamish was seated over a cup of coffee and said, ‘The Willets’s place has been sold.’

  Hamish raised his eyebrows. ‘I wouldnae hae thought anyone would have taken that.’ The Willets’s house was a Victorian villa set back from the waterfront. It had been up for sale for five years and was in bad repair.

  ‘I gather they got it for a song. Someone said ten thousand pounds was the figure.’

  ‘And who’s they?’

  ‘Name of Thomas. English. Don’t know anything about them. Expected to move in today. Maybe it’ll be work for you.’

  Hamish grinned. ‘A crime, you mean? With weather like this, nothing bad can happen.’

  ‘The glass is falling.’

  ‘I never knew a barometer yet that could tell the weather,’ said Hamish. ‘What’s happening up at Tommel Castle?’ Hamish asked the question with a casual air of indifference, but Mr Johnson was not deceived. Tommel Castle, some miles outside Lochdubh, was the home of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe.

  ‘I gather Priscilla’s come back with a party of friends,’ said the manager.

  Hamish took a sip of coffee. ‘What kind of friends?’

  ‘Sloane Rangers, I think. Two fellows and two girls.’

  Hamish was conscious of a feeling of relief. It sounded like two couples. He dreaded to hear that Priscilla had brought a boyfriend with her.

  ‘Had a look at them yet?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, aye, they were in for dinner here last night.’

  Hamish stiffened. ‘And what has happened to the colonel’s hospitality when his daughter has to entertain her friends at the local hotel?’

  Mr Johnson looked uncomfortable. ‘They’ve been at the castle for over a week,’ he said, and then looked at the ceiling so that he should not see the disappointment in Hamish’s eyes.

  Hamish put his unfinished coffee slowly down on the desk. ‘I’d better be getting off on my rounds,’ he said. ‘Come along, Towser.’ The big mongrel slouched out after his master, his plume of a tail at half-mast as if he sensed Hamish’s distress.

  Hamish stood out in the forecourt of the hotel among the tubs of scarlet geraniums and blinked in the sunlight. It seemed strange that the weather was still as glorious as ever. Over a week! And she had not called.

  He went to the police station and then through the garden at the back and up to his small croft to make sure his sheep had enough water. The sun was hot on his back, curlews piped from the heather and overhead a buzzard, like Icarus, sailed straight for the sun.

  A large black ewe ambled up and nuzzled his hand. Hamish automatically patted the sheep, his thoughts on what was going on at the castle. Priscilla had said something teasing last time before she had left about his lazy lack of ambition. He was certainly not an ambitious man. He enjoyed his easygoing life and he loved western Sutherland with its mountains and heather and the broad stretch of the Atlantic beyond the sea loch where the old people said the blue men rode the waves and the dead came back as seals.

  He decided it would do no harm just to go up to the castle and have a look.

  He had a new white Land Rover, a perk from head office in Strathbane, no doubt with the blessing of Chief Detective Inspector Blair who enjoyed a reputation for solving murders with Hamish’s help, even though Hamish had solved them single-handedly but had let the boorish detective take the credit.

  The twisting road up to the castle wound through the hills and his heart lifted as the road bore him higher above the village. There would be some simple explanation as to why Priscilla had not been to see him. Her father, the colonel, strongly disapproved of her friendship with the local bobby. He had probably told her not to have anything to do with him, though Hamish, deliberately forgetting that her father’s temper and disapproval had not stopped Priscilla from visiting him in the past.

  He parked the Land Rover on the verge outside the gates. He wanted to spy out the lie of the land before he was seen.

  He walked slowly up the drive. He could hear shouts and laughter, so instead of following round the turn of the drive that would bring him to the lawns in front of the house, he plunged into the pine wood at the side and made his way silently over the pine needles to where he could get a clear view without being seen himself.

  They were playing croquet, Priscilla and her friends. At first, he had eyes only for her. She was bent over the mallet, the golden bell of her hair falling about her face. She was wearing a plain white blouse, a short straight scarlet cotton skirt, and low-heeled brown sandals with thin straps. Hamish’s attention turned to the man who had come up to her and put his arms around her to show her how to use the mallet. He was tall, with crisp dark hair, a handsome face, and a blue chin. He was wearing a checked shirt and black curling hairs sprouted at the open neck. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing strong tanned arms covered with black hair.

  There were two girls, both with the monkey faces of rich Chelsea, and well-coiffed hair. They were wearing casual clothes. The other man was a rabbity-looking individua
l with gold-rimmed glasses.

  Then as Hamish watched, Priscilla smiled at the dark-haired man, a radiant smile, a happy smile, and Hamish felt cold. A darkness grew inside him. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe was in love with that hairy ape, that Neanderthal. His distress was sharp and acute. Suddenly, the smile left Priscilla’s face and she looked about her and then at the trees.

  Hamish crept silently away. He felt numb. Misery dragged at his feet like clay as he walked back to the Land Rover.

  He drove very carefully back to Lochdubh, drove like a drunk man trying to sober up.

  Then he saw a large dusty removal van outside the Willets’s house. The newcomers had arrived.

  Rather than be alone with himself and his thoughts, Hamish drove straight to the house and parked beside the van. A couple, a tall, rather elegant woman and a big shambling man, were unloading bits and pieces.

  ‘Need any help?’ he asked. ‘I’m Hamish Macbeth, the local bobby.’

  The woman wiped her hand on her trousers and held it out. ‘Trixie Thomas,’ she said, ‘and this is my husband, Paul.’

  She was almost as tall as Hamish. She had long brown hair which curled naturally on her shoulders and brown eyes, very large with bluish whites. Her mouth was thin and her teeth, rather prominent when she smiled, very white. Hamish judged her to be about forty-five. Her husband, a large bear of a man with a crumpled clown’s face, looked like a fat man who had recently been on a severe diet. His skin looked baggy as if it was meant to stretch across a fatter frame. He had little black eyes and a big mouth and a squashed nose.

  ‘Are you managing?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘We’re doing our best,’ sighed Trixie. ‘But it is hot. We rented this removal van. Couldn’t afford the professionals so I suppose we’ll have to manage … somehow.’ Her eyes grew wider and her mouth drooped and her hands fluttered in a helpless gesture.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Hamish. He removed his peaked cap and rolled up the sleeves of his blue regulation shirt.