Hamish MacBeth 03 (1988) - Death of an Outsider

by M C Beaton

  “Alistair Gunn is the one with the leather hat on,” said Mackay. “He works for the Forestry Commission and makes money on the side by working as a ghillie when the toffs come up from London. His friend, Dougie Macdonald, is a ghillie when he’s not collecting his dole and sleeping.”

  Hamish had heard that the local landowner, Mr. Kringstein, a toilet-roll manufacturer, ran his home and estates in the time-honoured way. Contrary to gloomy expectations, he went on much as the aristocrat he had bought the land and estates from had done. The ghillies, or Highland servants, made their money when Kringstein had a house party. They went out on the river with the guests and showed them, if necessary, how to fish, and carried their tackle and rowed them up and down.

  It was obvious to Hamish that the two ghillies wanted to get away from Mainwaring, but were kept by his side because they had accepted his self-appointed role as laird, much as they resented it. “Do ye know what happened to my aunt the other day?” said Alistair Gunn. “She was on the bus to Golspie and wearing her new fur coat and she could hear this bairn behind her, chattering to its mither, and then she smelt oranges, and the next thing she knew, she could feel something rubbing at the back of her new fur coat.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Mainwaring testily, “that happened to everyone’s aunt, and the story is as old as the hills. You were about to say that the next thing your aunt heard was the kid’s mother saying, ‘Don’t do that, dear. You’ll get fur all over your orange.’”

  “I wass not about to say that,” said Allistair Gunn. “Not at all. It was a different thing entirely.”

  “Then what was it?” asked Mainwaring, his voice full of amused contempt.

  “Well, I am not going to tell you, because you are not going to listen,” said Alistair huffily. “You mean you can’t tell me,” jeered Mainwaring. “The trouble with you chaps is that you hear an old story or a joke on the radio and immediately you decide it’s something funny that happened to your aunt or uncle.”

  The pub door opened and two other men came in. Alister and his friend hailed them with relief.

  “Dearie me,” said Hamish. “Does he always go on like that?”

  “Always,” said Mackay gloomily. “He’s spotted yi. Here he comes.”

  Mackay reflected he had never seen anyone move with such speed. One minute, the constable was sitting at ease; the next, he had darted out of the door.

  Mainwaring dived after him. “Macbeth!” he called. But there was no movement in the darkness.

  Hamish, who had run around the side of the pub, waited a few moments, and then started to walk towards the manse.

  But there was no friendly welcome from Mrs. Struthers. The minister was there, and so, with many nervous look at her husband, Mrs. Struthers said there was no one at Women’s Rural Institute who would behave in such a way, and no one in Cnothan had any reason to wish the Mainwarings ill.

  Hamish went sadly back to the police station. He felt homesick. He did not switch on the lights when he got the police station, but sat on the floor of the kitchen with the curtains drawn and the little television set on the floor in front of him.

  After fifteen minutes, he heard the bell at the police-station end resounding furiously through the house, followed a few minutes later by knocking on the kitchen door.

  Towser let out a low growl and Hamish shushed the dog into silence.

  After a while, he could hear footsteps crunching away over the gravel, and then there was silence. Mr. Mainwaring had gone home.

  Hamish switched on the lights, put the television set on the table, and made himself a cup of coffee. A female newscaster with flat, pale eyes was talking about famine in Ethiopia and making Hamish feel he was personally responsible for it. He switched channels. There was a programme about wildlife in the Galapagos Islands. He settled down to watch.

  And then there was a knock at the kitchen door again.

  He cocked his head to one side and listened. Whoever it was had chosen to come straight to the kitchen door rather than go to the police-station end.

  He softly approached the door and listened again. He felt sure if Mainwaring had returned, then he would feel the man’s anger through the door.

  He suddenly opened it. A couple stood on the step, blinking in the light.

  “Constable Macbeth?” said the man. “I am John Sinclair, and this is my wife, Mary. We’re in need of a bit of help.”

  “Come in,” said Hamish, leading the way into the kitchen. He pulled out chairs for them and switched on the electric kettle and took cups and saucers down from the cupboard.

  “And what can I do for you, Mr. Sinclair?” said Hamish, measuring tea-leaves into the teapot. “We’re friends of Mr. Johnston, the hotel manager, over at Lochdubh.”

  “Aye, I know him well.”

  “He told us you might be able to help us. We wass over in Lochdubh the other day. My brother, Angus, has the fishing boat there.”

  “I know Angus. No trouble in Lochdubh, is there?” asked Hamish sharply.

  “No, none whateffer,” said John Sinclair. He took off his tweed cap and twisted it round and round in his fingers. His wife, Mary, lit up a cigarette and Hamish sniffed the air longingly. He had given up smoking two months ago and wondered if the sharp desire for nicotine would ever leave him. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe disapproved of smoking.

  Hamish filled the teapot with boiling water and tipped some of the biscuits from the packet on the table onto a plate. He sat down beside them, poured tea, cast an anguished look at Mary Sinclair’s cigarette, and then said, “What’s it about?”

  “It’s like this,” said John Sinclair. “My faither lives outside the town on the road to Lochdubh, not far, about a mile up the road, say. He’s got a bit croft and a cottage. My mither died two years ago, and since then Faither’s shut himself up. He won’t see me or Mary or his wee grandson or anyone.”

  “And what is it I can do?” asked Hamish.

  “Mr. Johnston told us you had the gift o’ the gab,” said John Sinclair. “We wass hoping you could go out and see Faither and have a blether with him, and see if you can cheer him up.”

  Hamish began to feel cheered up himself. This was just the sort of family problem he was often asked to deal with in Lochdubh, where the policeman doubled as local psychiatrist.

  “I’ve got business out that way with Mr. Mainwaring,” said Hamish. “I’ll drop by to see your father in the morning.”

  John Sinclair had a typically Sutherland type of face, high cheek-bones and intense blue eyes that slanted at the corners in an almost oriental way. Those eyes went blank.

  “Och, I wouldnae bother yourself with the crabbit auld man,” said Mary Sinclair, speaking for the first time. She was a small, fat woman with dyed blonde hair cut in what Hamish was already beginning to think of as the Cnothan cut, short and chrysanthemum-like, a style which had been fashionable in the fifties. “Thanks for the tea. We’d best be on our way.”

  “I am not a friend of Mr. Mainwaring’s,” said Hamish, correctly interpreting the reason for the sudden coolness in the air. “I am investigating the attack on his wife.”

  “Attack!” Mary Sinclair looked amazed.

  “Three people dressed as witches jumped out at her last night,” said Hamish.

  “Oh, that.” Mary shrugged. “They didnae hurt her, jist gave her the wee fright.”

  Hamish looked at her sharply. “You don’t seem very shocked. And anyway, why Mrs. Mainwaring? Why not Mr. Mainwaring, who seems to be the one nobody likes?”

  “I don’t know a thing about it,” said Mary quickly, “but if you ask me, you could poison that man, and he’d still be in Cnothan in the morning. Nothing would get rid of him.”

  “And so the vulnerable one is attacked? Nasty,” said Hamish. “I mean, the weaker one,” he added in reply to Mary’s blank look.

  “I don’t know a thing about it,” she said again. She dragged on her cigarette. Hamish waited for the smoke to appear but it
did not. He wondered where it went, or if Mary Sinclair went around with fog-bound lungs.

  “Don’t be tellin’ that Mainwaring any of our business,” said John Sinclair. “We keep ourselves to ourselves in Cnothan.”

  “Aye,” said Hamish dryly. “I had noticed that. I’ll call on your father tomorrow.”

  After the Sinclairs had left, Hamish turned back to the television. The wildlife programme had ended and now a couple with almost unintelligible Birmingham accents were writhing on a bed. He wondered why it was that the actresses television chose for the passionate sex scenes were always scrawny, sallow, and angry-looking. He tried the other channels. On one, the news again, on another, an ‘alternative’ comedian was making up in four-letter words what he lacked in wit, and on the third, there was the umpteenth rerun of The Quiet Man. He switched off the set and stared moodily into space. The wind had risen and was tearing through the trees outside the house. He felt lonely and miserable. Then he thought of Jenny Lovelace, and a little glimmer of light appeared on the horizon of his depression.

  ♦

  The morning was glaring bright and freezing cold. He crossed the road and knocked on the door of Jenny’s cottage.

  There was no reply. Feeling cold and miserable again, he returned to the police station and got out MacGregor’s white police Land Rover, noticing without much surprise that it was nearly out of petrol.

  He stopped at the garage, calling out ‘Fine day’ to the petrol-pump attendant, who grunted by way of reply and looked at him with hard, hostile eyes.

  Hamish waited until the tank was filled up, paid for the petrol, and then said to the petrol-pump attendant, “That’s a nasty, stupid face you’ve got, you unfriendly, horrible man.”

  He drove off, leaving the man staring after him, and headed out on the Lochdubh road, wishing with all his heart he were going home. Just on the outskirts of the town were several long, low, white-washed buildings with a sign outside that read CNOTHAN GAME AND FISH COMPANY.

  Hamish decided to call in on the way back and see if he could scrounge anything.

  The natives appeared to grow friendlier the farther he drove out of Cnothan. By asking a man on a tractor, he was able to find out that Diarmuid Sinclair, John’s father, lived on the hill up on the left of the road a few yards farther on.

  There was a path leading up to a small white croft house, but no drive. He parked the Land Rover in the ditch and walked up toward the house.

  No smoke came from the chimney and the curtains were tightly drawn. And yet, mused Hamish, the old man could not be too much of a recluse, for the fencing around the croft was in good repair and there was a fair-sized flock of Cheviots cropping the grass.

  He knocked on the low door but there was no reply. The wind soughed and whistled through the stunted trees that formed a shelter belt to one side of the house. A flock of sea-gulls wheeled overhead and then landed in the field in front of the house. “Bad weather coming,” muttered Hamish. He tried the handle of the door and found it unlocked. He opened it and went in.

  Like most croft houses, it had a parlour, seldom used, to one side, and a living-room-cum-kitchen on the other. He went into the kitchen.

  Diarmuid Sinclair sat beside the cold hearth wrapped in a tartan blanket. He looked like one of the minor prophets or the Ancient Mariner seeking one of three to stoppeth. He had a long white beard and glittering eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a rosy, wrinkled face.

  “Blowing up outside,” said Hamish. “Cold in here. Want the fire lit?”

  Diarmuid looked at him with the sorrowful eyes of a whipped dog, but said nothing.

  Hamish made a clicking noise of impatience. He went back outside and round the house to the peat stack and collected some peats. He chopped kindling and took the lot back indoors and proceeded to light the fire.

  When it was crackling merrily, he swung the smoke-blackened kettle on its chain over the blaze and then went to a shelf in the corner and found mugs, a carton of milk, and a jar of instant coffee. When the kettle was boiling, he made the coffee, put in plenty of sugar, and, fishing in his pocket, produced a flask of whisky and poured a generous measure in one cup.

  He handed the cup to the old man, who drew a wrinkled hand out from under his rug and waved it away.

  “I am not wasting good whisky,” said Hamish severely. “Drink it, ye miserable old sinner, or I’ll arrest ye for impeding the law in the process of its duty.”

  “I am the sick man,” quavered Diarmuid.

  “You look it,” said Hamish heartlessly. “And it’s no wonder, sitting there feeling sorry for yourself and too damn lazy to light your own fire.”

  Diarmuid drank a large mouthful of hot coffee and whisky.

  “I see you haven’t heard the news,” he said drearily. “Ma wife died.”

  “That wass two years ago,” said Hamish. “And life goes on, and the poor woman can’t be having much of a time up there what with worrying about you neglecting your grandson and committing suicide. For that’s just what you are doing, you auld scunner.”

  “I’m a poor auld man,” wailed Diarmuid.

  “You’re about sixty, although I admit you’ve done your best to look like eighty. What on earth are you thinking about to turn your own son and grandson from the door?”

  “They don’t need me. I’m a poor auld—”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Hamish morosely. He walked to the window and looked out on the desolate scene. “Aye, it’s blowing hard and the sea-gulls are in your fields. There’ll be snow before long.”

  Diarmuid tilted his mug and drained the rest of the scalding contents in one gulp.

  Then he threw back the rug and eased himself to his feet, releasing a strong smell of unwashed body. “That’s where you’re wrong,” said Diarmuid. He went to a barometer on the wall and tapped it. “Never wrong,” he said. “Says ‘set fair.”

  The wind howled and the first drops of sleet struck the panes of the windows. “It’s wrong,” said Hamish. “Look. Sleet. It’ll turn to snow before evening.”

  “Nobody’ll listen to a poor auld man,” mourned Diarmuid. “That machine never makes a mistake.”

  Hamish seldom lost his temper, but loneliness, worry that Priscilla might even now be in Lochdubh, and fury at the self-pity of Diarmuid boiled up in him. He seized the barometer from the wall, walked to the front door, and threw it out on the grass. “See for yourself, you stupid barometer,” he howled.

  There was a strange rusty sound from behind him. Ashamed of himself, Hamish ran out and retrieved the barometer, scared he had given Diarmuid a heart attack. The crofter’s choking and creaking noises were becoming louder by the minute.

  “There, there,” said Hamish, quite frightened. “Me and my damn temper. Sit down, man.” Diarmuid sank back into his armchair by the fire, still choking, grunting, and wheezing. It was then that Hamish realized the crofter was laughing.

  ♦

  It was an hour before he left Diarmuid. As if the laughter had broken his self-imposed isolation, the crofter would not stop talking. Hamish found the croft house boasted a surprisingly modern bathroom at the back and coaxed Diarmuid to take a bath. Then he fried him eggs and bacon, made him a pot of strong tea laced with more whisky, and went on his way, promising to call again.

  As he had forecast, the sleet was already changing to snow as he turned the Land Rover in to the short drive that led to Balmain.

  Balmain was a bungalow, and not a very good one either. It was a square, thin-walled affair with a temporary look, having the appearance of some lakeside summer-houses. The original croft house stood close by, now being used as a shed. Some scraggly wellingtonias acted as a shelter belt. He rang the doorbell, which sounded like Big Ben, and waited.

  He had imagined Mrs. Mainwaring would turn out to be a small, faded, timid woman, but it was a giantess who answered the door. Mrs. Mainwaring was nearly six feet tall. She was powerfully built and had an enormous bust and a great tweed-covered backside, which she wordle
ssly displayed to Hamish as she turned and walked off into the house, leaving the door open. He followed her in and found himself in a book-lined living-room. A quick curious glance at the titles told Hamish that it was doubtful the shelves contained one work of fiction, either classical or modern. There were a great number of ‘How to’ books on carpentry, painting, sheep-rearing, art, and gardening. There were shelves of books on popular psychology, and row upon row of encyclopaedias and dictionaries. There were two easy chairs, a low coffee-table, a desk with a typewriter, two filing cabinets, and a large Persian rug on the floor. There were no knick-knacks or ornaments, no magazines or newspapers. And the room was cold. The fireplace was ugly, being made of acid-green tiles. A single log smouldered dismally, occasionally sending puffs of smoke out into the stale, cold air of the room.

  “Sit down, officer,” said Mrs. Mainwaring in a deep voice. “My husband is out somewhere at the moment. He told me he had been to see you.”

  “I wondered,” said Hamish, looking round for a place to lay his cap and finally setting it neatly on the coffee table, “if you would mind coming with me to the churchyard and showing me exactly where it was you were attacked.”

  “I wasn’t attacked,” said Mrs. Mainwaring. “Just startled. Not every day I see witches.” She gave a sudden bellowing laugh.

  “Whateffer,” said Hamish politely. “When would it be convenient for you to visit the scene of the crime?”

  “It wouldn’t be convenient,” said Mrs. Mainwaring. “William would just say I was making a fuss.”

  “But your husband is most insistent that I find out who frightened you.”

  “He likes poking his nose into things and annoying people,” said Mrs. Mainwaring. “Annoying the replacement constable must be the breath of life to him.”

  “Would you say you were unpopular in the community?” asked Hamish.

  “I’m not. He is,” said Mrs. Mainwaring roundly. “In fact, I like this place. Nice people.”

  “I would not say that they are very friendly to incomers, even someone like myself from the west coast,” Hamish pointed out.