Hamish MacBeth 03 (1988) - Death of an Outsider

by M C Beaton

“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 light-hearted 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 with 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.”

  ♦

  THE END