by M C Beaton
Sandra went into a bar, sat up on a bar stool, and ordered a vodka and tonic. “How much?” she asked the barman.
“The gentleman over there wishes to pay for it.”
Sandra swung round. A man dressed in expensively casual clothes raised his glass to her. Sandra picked up her own glass and went to join him.
“I’m Vic Faziola,” he said. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Visiting for a bit,” said Sandra. He was about her own age with thick brown hair greying at the temples. He had a sallow face and small black eyes. “What does one do around here?”
“People go swimming or surfing. I own this tavern so it keeps me busy. You English?”
“Yes.”
“What brings you to Florida?”
“Just a holiday. I thought some sun would be nice.”
“Why don’t you meet me here at eight this evening and I’ll take you for dinner. I like getting to know the visitors.”
Sandra went back to her flat, feeling happy. It was nice to know she still had pulling power. But the afternoon stretched out ahead. She decided to go swimming and then find a hairdresser.
She put her swimsuit on under a blouse and jeans, stuffed underwear into a bag, drove back to Stuart, and headed for the beach.
Great glassy waves curled onto the beach. The sun beat down. It was very hot. Sandra had left her wallet and the bag with the dwindling money in her flat.
She left her clothes on the beach and plunged into the water. She was a powerful swimmer. With steady strokes, she headed out to sea and then turned on her back and floated, dreaming that her new companion would turn out to be her escape from looming poverty.
A log floated past and scraped her arm. Sandra cursed and decided to head for shore. She turned on her front. As she raised her head, she saw the figure of a lifeguard shouting something through a loud-hailer, but the wind had risen and she could not hear what he was saying. Probably a storm coming. She raised her head again. Now he was running towards the water, pointing frantically.
Maybe a boat was coming up on her. She twisted her head around and that’s when she saw it—a dorsal fin cutting through the waves in her direction. Sandra began to swim as hard as she could. But she was too late.
Great teeth plunged into her leg. She let out a scream of pure terror. Then she disappeared under the waves and a red stain spread out over the blue water.
It took a long time to recover the bits of Sandra from the sea and put them together with a woman who was missing from the condominium. Her flat was searched and several stolen passports recovered. Then it was wondered how she had managed to pass through passport controls at airports, where she would get fingerprint and retina scrutiny. But Sandra had driven to Mexico, picking out-of-the-way border controls, and once she was in Mexico had bribed a trucker to take her across the border into the States.
From fingerprints found in her flat, Interpol identified her at last as the missing Sandra Prosser.
Hamish Macbeth had to read about it in the newspapers, angry that neither Jimmy nor anyone at Strathbane had taken the trouble to tell him. Normally lazy and unambitious, and usually glad of a chance to go fishing, he nonetheless could not shake off his irritation. He finally drove to Strathbane and ran Jimmy to earth in the detective’s favourite pub.
“Why didn’t you tell me Sandra Prosser had been found?” demanded Hamish.
Jimmy grinned. “You mean, what was left of her? A fitting end. She lived with a shark and got killed by one.”
“So why didn’t you tell me?”
“Stop glaring at me. I’ve been right busy. I somehow thought you’d hear. Sorry. Have a real drink.”
“I’m driving,” said Hamish huffily.
“Well, now you’re here, I’ll give you the latest horror story in the Prosser saga. Someone in Jensen Beach took a photo of her. Some woman taking a picture of her child but there’s a clear shot o’ Sandra in the background. They start backtracking through her travels. Found she had been staying in a hotel in Santiago and had spent the night with a young man called Jaime Gonzales, subsequently reported missing. He worked at a clothing firm. He handed in his notice the day after his fling with our Sandra—who had been trying to find him, and paid a girl at the hotel to interpret for her. Next thing, Jaime’s mother reports him missing. As they live in a shantytown, the police don’t care much. The interpreter said that Sandra was very angry. I think this Jaime stole money from her. The safe in the villa in Rio had been cleaned out. I think she caught up with him and killed him to get the money back. Of course, she must have been really tough to live with a psycho like Prosser.
“Cheer up, Hamish. It’s the final chapter. You can write The End and get back to poaching.”
Hamish decided to do just that. When he returned to the police station, he collected his rod and fishing tackle and, with the dog and cat at his heels, walked up over the moors until he came to the upper reaches of the River Anstey.
Keeping a careful eye out for the water bailiff, because the fishing rights belonged to Colonel Halburton-Smythe, he cast his fly on a glassy pool and felt, for the first time in ages, all the dark worry of the Prosser case fade away.
He broke off for a picnic lunch and had just opened a thermos flask when Sonsie gave a warning hiss but Lugs wagged his tail.
Hamish stood up and saw Elspeth Grant coming down the heathery slope towards him.
“You gave me a fright,” he said. “I thought you were the water bailiff. How did you find me?”
“Elementary, my dear Watson. It’s a fine day, the murders are over, and I remembered this was your favourite poaching site.”
They sat down together on a flat rock by the pool. “Coffee?” asked Hamish.
“Fine. Just black.”
“You look like your old self,” said Hamish. Elspeth’s hair was frizzy, and she was wearing an old sweater over a pair of jeans. “What brings you?”
“Just a holiday.”
“I would have thought they would have sent you back up on the Prosser case.”
“I didn’t want to risk anyone pinching my job as a news presenter so I got a new contract stating that that was my sole job. So, in future, everyone can murder everyone up here and you won’t see me. Tell me all about it.”
“Too fine a day,” said Hamish. “I want to forget it.”
Elspeth studied him with those silvery Gypsy eyes of hers. “Prosser evidently knew this territory like the back of his hand,” she said. “Funny him falling down that gully.”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” snapped Hamish, and in a milder voice, “Sandwich? It’s chicken.”
“Thanks. It won’t be one of your hens, anyway. You just let them die of old age. I’ll take you for dinner tonight. Don’t stand me up. Eight o’clock?”
“I’ll be there. I think maybe I’ll pack up. The fish don’t seem to be biting. I really ought to go over to Drim and see how Milly Davenport’s getting on.”
Milly had never lived in a house with a cesspool before. So when the sink and toilet started backing up, she phoned Ailsa for help. Ailsa gave her the number of a local man who would come and pump out the cesspool.
Three men with a truck with a big tank on the back arrived. “I mind the drain is somewhere ower here,” said the boss. He approached the flower bed where the money was buried. “Not there, surely,” shouted Milly.
“No, no, missus. Jist the ither side, covered in the gravel.” He scraped the gravel away and revealed an iron cover. He wrenched and turned and finally pulled the cover off. A fountain of excrement, fuelled by trapped gases, blasted into the air, spraying everyone with the worst kind of filth.
It poured down into the flower bed and Milly thought with dread of the case of money buried underneath.
When the gusher subsided, the boss, seemingly unfazed by the fact that he was covered in brown unmentionable, put the huge hose into the drain and then started a motor in the truck. Milly ran into the house and stripped off h
er clothes and had a shower. Then she dressed in clean clothes and went outside again.
The smell was awful. Amused villagers had gathered to watch. A cesspool clearance was regarded as a rare show. When the job was pronounced finished, Jock Kennedy and some of the men asked Milly if she had a hose.
“Yes,” said Milly. “There are some gardening things in a shed at the side there. What are you going to do?”
“We’ll chust be washing this muck off the garden.”
Milly thought frantically of the buried money. “Oh, don’t bother…,” she began, but Jock was already walking to the shed.
He came back with a long coil of hose. Not bothering to ask Milly’s permission, he went into the house and fed the hose from the kitchen tap round to the front of the house and began to drench the garden.
Finally Jock stopped and looked up at the black clouds streaming in from the west. “Storm’s coming, Milly,” he said cheerfully. “That’ll finish the job.”
To Milly’s dismay, Ailsa, who had joined the watchers, said cheerfully, “I think we could all do with a cup of tea.”
Milly felt she could not refuse. They would wonder why. Jock, Ailsa, and the villagers gathered in the kitchen. Milly made endless cups of tea and sliced cake. Outside the wind screamed and the rain flooded down.
After two hours, they left. Milly hurriedly donned a raincoat and rain hat and went out into the garden. The screaming gale lifted her hat from her head and sent it sailing off.
She went to the shed and took out a spade and began to dig. The excrement had sunk down into her new flower bed, and the smell was awful. She hoisted out the attaché case and carried it into the kitchen.
She laid it on the table and opened it. The notes inside were brown with the muck from the cesspool and soaking wet.
Milly found a ball of string and began to put lines of string across the kitchen. Then she began to gingerly sponge each note and pin it up to dry. She stoked up the Raeburn stove and returned to the long, long job of cleaning the banknotes.
Hamish Macbeth drove up to Milly’s house. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, which had never quite gone away. He knocked at the door. There was no answer, although he could see Milly’s car parked at the side of the house. He thought that she must be down in the village. But after so many scares and murders, he wondered if she was all right. He tried the door and found it unlocked.
Milly had heard the knock at the door but decided if she did not answer it, whoever it was would go away.
She was just pinning up a wet note when she sensed a presence behind her and turned round. Hamish Macbeth stood there.
“I see you’ve found the money,” he said.
“It’s my money,” said Milly shrilly.
“Oh, aye? And do you often wash it? I’ve heard of laundering money but this is the first time I’ve seen it actually done.”
“It’s mine,” said Milly desperately. “It was my husband’s and now it belongs to me.”
Hamish sat down slowly at the kitchen table. He took off his hat. If he put in a report, it would show that Milly had every intention of keeping the money. By the mess of it, it must have been buried in the garden. He had heard over in Lochdubh about the cesspool clearance. Prosser had been a criminal, and the money should be impounded.
Milly stood before him, tears running down her face. What an irritatingly weak woman, he thought savagely, realising for the first time how easy it would be to bully Milly. Blair, for one, would have a field day.
“How much?” he demanded.
“About seven hundred and fifty thousand,” whimpered Milly, “or it was when I first counted. I’ve used some of it.”
“And what do you plan to do with it?”
“I can stay on here. Spend it in the village.”
Hamish thought again of Blair and of the paperwork involved.
He stood up. “I’m off,” he said. “I neffer saw the damn money. Get it?”
Milly seized his hand. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!”
Hamish jerked his hand free and walked out of the kitchen.
When Hamish returned to the police station, he found the editor of the Highland Times waiting by the kitchen door.
“Now what?” asked Hamish. “I’ve had enough of murders and mayhem to last me a lifetime.”
“Nothing like that,” said Matthew. “It’s a bit o’ news that might interest you.”
“Come ben to the kitchen and let’s hear it.”
Matthew sat down at the table and took out some notes. “You remember that Prosser was conned over some gold mine.”
“Yes, it did seem daft. I kept wondering why he was conned.”
“Well, you know the price of gold is now sky-high?”
“Aye, I read about it.”
“You know where Tyndrum lies, over by the mountains that march eastward along Glen Cononish?”
“Yes.”
“It’s going to be Scotland’s first gold mine. Chris Sangster—he’s the chief executive of Scotgold and a mining engineer—says that each ton of rock is likely to yield up to ten grams of high-grade gold, worth around two hundred pounds. It was talked about before in the sixties when the British Geological Society found evidence of gold in the Western Highlands, but the price of gold was so low, nothing was done about it.
“They’re all excited over in Tyndrum. I mean Tyndrum is only a straggle of houses along the main road from Perth and Glasgow to Oban and there isn’t much employment. Scotgold expects approval from Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Planning Authority by early summer. So the conning captain might have been on to something.”
“Prosser’s papers have been checked. The geological survey was a forgery and put the gold over by Ben Nevis,” said Hamish. “If the captain had stuck to the straight-and-narrow path and invested in Scotgold, he might have made something.”
They sat talking and then Hamish cried, “Look at the time! I’m late.”
Without changing out of his uniform, he hurried along to the Italian restaurant. The storm had passed, and the night was clear and starry.
“I was about to leave,” said Elspeth coldly. “You smell awful. In fact, you thought so little about this date, you couldn’t even get out of your uniform and take a bath.”
“It’s like this,” said Hamish. “I was over at Milly’s and she was getting her cesspool cleaned. Then Matthew called with a story and I forgot the time.”
“You forgot the…?” Elspeth grabbed her handbag and marched out of the restaurant.
Hamish tried to rush after her but fell headfirst over his cat and dog who were stationed outside. Thanks to the huge cat flap on the kitchen door, they could come and go as they pleased. Hamish cursed as he got to his feet in time to hear Elspeth driving off in her car.
He wearily returned to his police station, wishing he were not such an indulgent owner and could nail that cat flap shut. Instead, he took off his uniform and bagged it up. He put on clean clothes and drove to an all-night laundrette in Strathbane where they had a coin-operated dry-cleaning machine. As he sat and waited, he reflected it was amazing how a smell in the air could permeate his clothes like that.
“Milly’s found that missing money,” said Ailsa to her husband two days later.
“Did she tell you?”
“Not her. But smell that. She bought groceries with this twenty-pound note.”
Jock smelled it and wrinkled his nose. “It smells of perfume and…”
“Shite!” said Ailsa. “The way I see it, she must have had it buried in the garden and all the money got soaked. Look how wrinkled the note is, as if it’s been in the water.”
“Are we going to tell anyone?”
“Of course not. She buys all her stuff in our shop. I’ll take her money, smelly or not!”
The next day, Hamish felt he should call on Elspeth. He had stood her up so many times that her anger was understandable.
He was about to go to Strathbane and buy a bunch of roses when the post arrived a
nd, with it, his bank statement. He had gone into the red. With the statement came a letter from the bank manager asking him to do something about the overdraft.
He went along to the offices of the Highland Times, seized a paper, and looked at the local events. There was the Highland Games at Braikie in a week’s time. It was a big event, sponsored by a building society and a bank. The prize for the hill running event was five thousand pounds.
Hamish drove to Braikie and entered his name. Then he returned to Lochdubh and changed into shorts and T-shirt and began to run up over the moors to the slopes of the mountains.
Elspeth went into Patel’s to buy some midge repellent. “Aye, they’re bad the day,” said Mr. Patel. “What’s our Hamish up to?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Elspeth coldly, and the curiosity overcame her. “Why?”
Mr. Patel grinned. “The greater red-legged Hamish has been seen running through the village like the wind and then up into the mountains. He must be in training for the hill race at Braikie.”
Elspeth felt low. These days she was a celebrity. The only person who did not want her company seemed to be Hamish Macbeth. Of course, he had turned up at the restaurant but in such a state! And to think how carefully she had dressed.
Luckily for Hamish, there was no crime during the week of arduous training that he put in.
He was expected to police the games so, on the great day, he put on his uniform, put his running gear in a bag, nailed the cat flap shut because he knew if he took his pets they would try to run with him as they had when he was training, and set out for the games.
It was a fine day with only wisps of cloud across the blue sky. He was alarmed at the number of people who stopped him and said they had put money on him. Willie the gamekeeper was running a book and Hamish was tempted to arrest him for illegal gambling, frightened of all the money people would lose if he did not win, but he had never done such a thing before and decided to turn a blind eye.
At last, it was time for him to change and get to the starting line. As the pistol went off, he set off at an easy pace. Suddenly he did not care if he won or not. He was enjoying the beauty of the day and the exercise.
