Death of a Liar

by M C Beaton

  “I know. She told me all that.”

  “I have been doing a bit o’ detective work,” said Dick. “She went to get me a drink and left her handbag open. I saw her passport and had a wee peek. She’s forty, all right.”

  And I’m thirty-three, thought Hamish. But what does a few years’ difference matter?

  He told Dick about his visit to the church.

  Dick slid a tray of scones into the oven. “Like a coffee?”

  “Aye.”

  “It’s instant.”

  “That’ll do fine,” said Hamish. “Where are Sonsie and Lugs?”

  “They had a big supper at Anka’s and they’ve gone to sleep in my room.” I’m losing my pets, thought Hamish. Will I never be rid of this wee man?

  “I wouldnae think a kirk like that would give out diamond rings,” said Dick. “Here’s your coffee.”

  “That’s grand. I don’t usually drink coffee this late. But I’m so tired, I’ll sleep like the dead.”

  Dick placed a mug of coffee in front of him. Outside, the wind was beginning to rise again.

  “I’m surprised you don’t want to go back home,” said Dick. “Not like you to leave an unsolved murder on your patch.”

  “Apart from the fact that Blair would make my life hell, I’d like to give it a couple more days up here, Dick. Let’s see what we can find out tomorrow.”

  But the next morning as he went around the village followed by the dog and cat, it was to find people were thoroughly irritated at being questioned over again. He longed to call on Anka, but knew she would be asleep. His phone rang. It was Jimmy. “We’re getting nowhere with the Leighs. Daviot wants you back in Lochdubh, pronto. He’s had complaints from the villagers about Blair’s bullying. You can leave Dick up there.”

  After he had rung off, Hamish walked to the thin spit of land beyond the tiny harbour which protected the village from the full force of the Atlantic. Enormous waves were crashing on the shore and seagulls swooped and dived, their calls adding to the restless clamour of the waves.

  He realised he had quickly become used to this noise. Lochdubh was protected by its long sea loch and high headland. In the middle of all this tumult and uproar, he thought, no one would hear a car arriving at Liz’s cottage, or even a shot.

  He went to the village shop and asked Mrs. Mackay if she could remember what the weather had been like on the night Liz was murdered.

  “It was right windy during the night,” she said. “But you know how quickly the weather changes. It was as calm as anything by the morning.”

  “How can you remember so clearly?”

  “Don’t be daft! We don’t get murders up here. None of us is likely to forget that night.”

  Hamish walked out of the shop and made his way back to the doctor’s. He roused Dick, who was still asleep, and gave him the news.

  “I’m sorry to leave you stranded here,” said Hamish.

  “Oh, I’ll be fine,” said Dick. “Maybe when folk get to know me better, they might come up with something.”

  “I’ll need to take the Land Rover, of course,” said Hamish. “I’ll come and collect you when they give me permission.”

  A police mobile unit was parked on the waterfront as he drove into Lochdubh.

  Daviot was just leaving it as Hamish got down from the Land Rover.

  “Ah, Macbeth,” he said. “Miss Dalray from forensics is at the schoolhouse. We thought it would be a good idea for her to go over the place again. Go and join her and I hope she may find something.”

  Hamish nodded and got back into the Land Rover and drove to the police station. He filled his pets’ water bowls and gave them canned food, ignoring their sulky glares. Sonsie and Lugs were used to having Dick cook real food for them. Telling them to stay, he went out and walked up to the schoolhouse, breathing in the familiar scents of home: peat smoke, tar, pine, and baking. He was carrying his forensic suit under his arm. He stopped outside the schoolhouse and put it on, then bent down and covered his boots before knocking at the door.

  Christine answered it. Hamish, his mind often full of Anka, had forgotten how attractive Christine looked.

  “Grand to see you, Hamish,” she said. “Watch where you walk. I’ve been taking up floorboards.”

  “Found anything?”

  “Not so far.”

  “It’s a lot of work for one woman,” said Hamish. “Why can’t they let you have some helpers?”

  “I did. But they were called back. Some drug bust.”

  “Want me to try the bedrooms while you go on down here?”

  “Knock yourself out. You might find something I’ve missed.”

  There were four bedrooms upstairs with bathrooms en suite. Apart from the well-​appointed bathrooms, not a great deal of money had been spent on the rest. The beds, wardrobes, side tables, dressing tables, and chairs were of the kind bought in cheap chain stores. There were no mattresses or duvets on the beds.

  Hamish called downstairs, “Where’s all the bedding?”

  “Taken to Strathbane and ripped apart,” she called.

  Hamish sat down at a dressing table in one of the largest of the bedrooms. He ran his hands underneath the counter to see if anything had been taped there. Then he turned and gazed blankly around the room. On the wall between the windows hung a badly executed painting of a Highland glen.

  He took it down and studied the back. He took out a clasp knife and ripped off the back. Nothing. But there were similar pictures in all the bedrooms.

  He collected the remaining three and began to take them apart. He was about to give up and was looking down dismally at the debris beside his feet when his eye caught a dark little blob of plasticine at the very inside corner of a painting of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

  “Christine!” he shouted. “I think I’ve found something.”

  She came running up the stairs.

  “Did you get my report about what I found at Cromish?” asked Hamish.

  “Yes, Jimmy gave me a copy.”

  “There was a ring in a bit o’ plasticine like this. Did you check the other plasticine for fingerprints?”

  “No prints at all. Whoever put it there wore gloves.”

  “Be a good lassie and take this off. I can be a bit clumsy.”

  “I’ll get my camera first.”

  When Christine returned with her camera, she took several shots of the blob, and then gently prised the plasticine free. “It’s gone hard,” she said, taking out a thin sharp knife. “I’ll just cut it open gently…there!”

  They both looked down at a diamond ring. The inscription read, YOURS IN CHRIST.

  Chapter Six

  The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling

  For you but not for me.

  —Military song

  “I knew there was a tie-up to Liz’s death,” said Hamish. “Oh, dear. Do I have to report this to Blair?”

  Christine went over to the window and looked down. “Blair isn’t here today, but Daviot’s just getting into his car.” She opened the window and called, “Sir! Hamish has found something.”

  Daviot came into the schoolhouse and made his way slowly up the stairs. He considered it beneath his dignity to run.

  He listened carefully after Hamish had shown him the ring and explained it was the twin of the one he had found in Liz’s garden shed.

  “Why haven’t you put in a report?” demanded Daviot.

  “But I did!” exclaimed Hamish.

  “I’m sure Mr. Blair would have given it to me if you had.”

  “Not necessarily, sir.”

  “What do you mean, Macbeth?”

  Hamish opened his mouth to slag off Blair, to point out how many times the man had tried to sabotage his cases, but realised, in time, that all that would happen was that he would get blasted for criticising a senior officer, so he said, “I believe he is busy with a drugs bust and probably has not had the time.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  Ha
mish described his visit to the church in Inverness and how Inverness police were going to look into the church’s financial records and also find out about Brough’s past.

  “Well, well,” said Daviot. “I shall look into that when I get back to Strathbane. Carry on searching. Give me that ring and the plasticine. You had better return to the lab, Miss Dalray, and check for fingerprints.”

  “Was anything found out about Anka Bajorak?”

  “Nothing criminal. Left Poland to get away from an abusive ex-husband.”

  When Daviot was back in his office, he asked his secretary, Helen, to find Blair and tell him to report to him immediately.

  After five minutes, Blair came in, his face flushed with the previous night’s drinking.

  “Why did you not inform me of Macbeth’s report?” demanded Daviot.

  “What report, sir? I did not see any report.” Blair had, in fact, torn it up.

  “Why should Macbeth lie to me and say he had put in a full report on the Bentley murder and The Church of the Chosen?”

  “Covering his scrawny arse as usual.”

  Downstairs in the detectives’ room, Jimmy slung his coat on the back of his chair. Suddenly curious to know what Blair was working on, he went to his desk. Blair’s desk was absolutely clear. Jimmy was about to turn away when he saw a sheaf of papers torn in four in Blair’s waste­paper basket.

  So the old fart was working after all, thought Jimmy. He picked out the papers and saw immediately that it was a report from Hamish Macbeth. He scanned it quickly and then looked round.

  “Anyone know where Blair is?”

  “Been summoned upstairs to the presence,” said Detective Andy MacNab.

  Jimmy hurried up the stairs and, ignoring Helen’s cry of protest, walked straight into Daviot’s office, where Blair and Daviot were companionably drinking tea and eating Tunnock’s caramel wafer biscuits.

  “I came straight up, sir,” said Jimmy, “because I found an important report from Macbeth torn up and in a waste­paper bucket.”

  Daviot held out an imperious hand. “Let me see it.”

  Blair lumbered to his feet. “I’ll be off then, sir.”

  “Sit down!” barked Daviot. He pressed a button on his desk, and Helen came hurrying in. “Get me some Scotch tape,” ordered Daviot.

  When Helen returned with the tape, Jimmy watched as Daviot’s manicured fingers neatly stuck the pages together and he then began to read.

  A seagull landed on the windowsill and surveyed the scene with one prehistoric eye.

  Blair cringed when Daviot eventually raised his head and said in a thin, cold voice, “Where did you find this, Anderson?”

  “In Chief Detective Inspector Blair’s wastepaper basket.”

  “Please leave us.”

  When Jimmy went outside, he saw that Helen was away from her desk, so he pressed his ear to the door.

  Blair was blustering, protesting that he would never, ever have done such a thing. “You see, sir, I am afraid the trouble is this. Anderson is after my job. He’s deliberately torn up Macbeth’s report and put it in my wastepaper basket to make me look bad.”

  Jimmy marched in again.

  “What is it, Anderson? I told you to leave.”

  “I was waiting to have a wee word with Helen about something,” said Jimmy, “and so I heard what Mr. Blair said. I cannae let such a slur on my character go. The solution is simple. All our fingerprints are on file. I have handled the papers and so have you, sir. Mr. Blair says he has not touched them. But the fingerprints of whoever tore the report up will be clearly marked. I suggest they be taken over to the lab.”

  “This is a waste of police time!” shouted Blair. “Sir, you know me as a good member of the lodge. Have I ever lied to you, sir?”

  Daviot hesitated. The fact was, he knew where he was with Blair. Blair always treated him with respect, always remembered to send flowers on the superintendent’s wife’s birthday. He had a deep resentment towards Hamish, because in a previous case where Mrs. Daviot had been drugged and made to look as if she was having raunchy sex with a villain and Daviot had jumped to the villain’s commands in order to stop photographs of his wife appearing in the papers, Hamish had recovered the photos for him and hushed the whole business up—but had kept one photograph which he had threatened to get published if Daviot closed down his police station.

  Right at that moment, Hamish entered Daviot’s office. Suddenly angry about his missing report, he had raced to Strathbane.

  “There is no need to waste the lab’s time with fingerprinting,” Daviot said to Jimmy. “Macbeth, get Helen to retype your report and give it to me.”

  “Certainly, sir,” said Hamish cheerfully. Daviot knew very little about computers. All Hamish really had to do was go to the computer he had written the report on and print out another copy.

  “That will be all,” said Daviot.

  Helen was furious. “All you need to do,” she snapped, “is print out another copy.”

  “Can’t be done,” said Hamish cheerfully. “Some numptie wiped it out.”

  “I’m not doing this for you.”

  “It’s not for me, it’s for our boss, but I’ll go back in and tell him you’re refusing to type it out.”

  “No, don’t do that. I’ll do it. Shove off.”

  He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and went off whistling.

  As he drove back to Lochdubh, early darkness was blanketing the countryside. A gale was driving ragged clouds across a small moon.

  Six o’clock already, thought Hamish. He wondered if Christine had found any fingerprint on the plasticine or on the ring.

  Lights were shining in the schoolhouse when he drove along the waterfront. He parked outside and went in.

  Christine was downstairs in the hall, packing up her case.

  “Find anything?” asked Hamish.

  “Not a thing. I checked out what we found, and there are no fingerprints. I’ve sent them off to the lab in Aberdeen to see if they can find any DNA. I came back up here in the hope of discovering something, anything.”

  She stripped off her forensic suit and then sat on the floor and pulled off the covering over her shoes. Christine had a lithe, slim body and small high breasts. Hamish felt low rumblings of lust before pulling himself together and telling his hormones to lie down.

  She yawned and ran her fingers through her springy, curly hair. “Gosh, I’m hungry.”

  “So am I,” said Hamish. “Tell you what, I’ll take you along to the Italian restaurant and we’ll both have something to eat.”

  “That would be grand. Oh, someone’s knocking at the door.”

  Hamish opened the door and found himself confronted by the Currie sisters. Both were middle-aged, both wearing identical headscarves and camel-hair coats. The light from the doorway glinted on their glasses.

  “We want to make sure there’s no hanky-panky going on,” said Nessie.

  “Hanky-panky,” echoed the Greek chorus that was her sister, Jessie.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” demanded Hamish.

  “In there,” said Nessie firmly, “is a young and vulnerable woman and we all know your reputation.”

  “Reputation,” mourned Jessie.

  Hamish was about to say something very rude when he remembered in time that the Currie sisters were seemingly bottomless funds of gossip.

  He stood aside. “You’d better come in and meet her.”

  He made the introductions and then said, “Before you ladies start blackening my character, I would like to remind you both that a nasty murder has been committed in our village and if you saw anything or if you have heard anything, it is your duty to let me know. And it is no use you looking at Miss Dalray as if she’s the whore o’ Bab­ylon. She is a forensic scientist and worthy of respect.”

  The sisters looked at each other in silent communication. Then Nessie said, “I don’t think they were married.”

  As usual, Hamish edited out h
er sister’s echo.

  “Why? Did she tell you?”

  “We called after they first came.”

  “This is the Leighs?”

  “Them, aye. We took along a cake to say welcome. She invited us in and gave us the worst coffee we’ve ever tasted. She turned to her man and said, ‘Stop sitting there like an idiot, Bert, and take those papers out the back and burn them. Hop to it.’”

  “Wait a bit,” said Hamish. “His name was Frank.”

  “That’s the point, see. If you can’t even remember your man’s name, stands to reason you’re not married to him. I said that I thought Mr. Leigh’s name was Frank and herself said that Bert was her pet name for him. Have you ever heard such havers?”

  “That’s interesting,” said Hamish. “Anything else?”

  “No, but we’d like a wee word with Miss Dalray.”

  “Not now. Shoo.” Hamish urged them towards the door.

  Nessie turned on the doorstep. “Remember what it says in Corinthians, Miss Dalray. ‘It is better to marry than to burn.’”

  Jessie’s voice echoed back to them. “Burn.”

  “What was that all about?” asked Christine.

  “The village guardians of my morals,” said Hamish. “They go around swearing I am some sort of Casanova.”

  “And are you?”

  “No such luck. Let’s eat.”

  Willie Lamont, the waiter in the restaurant, had once been a policeman, but had married the restaurant owner’s daughter.

  “You’re a bit early,” he said.

  “A problem with that?” asked Hamish.

  “No, we’re aye ready.” Willie whipped a can of spray cleaner from behind his back and liberally sprayed the table and then began scrubbing it with a cloth. “This is called Goaway,” he said proudly. “It’ll remove anything.”

  “You’ve just taken the polish off the table,” said Hamish.