Death of a Liar

by M C Beaton

  The third, a man claiming Laurent owed him money.

  “That’s all for now,” said Barry. “We might get something later.”

  “I hope he hasn’t just taken someone hostage in their house,” said Hamish.

  The phone rang half an hour later. They listened, but without much hope. Hamish suddenly stiffened. A restaurateur in Golspie, called Hugo Bryan, claimed that the identikit looked like his maître d’, who was called Felix Dejeux. The restaurant was called The Fine Fish.

  Elspeth took a note of the phone number, which she handed to Hamish.

  Hamish called the restaurant owner and explained who he was. “When do you close?” he asked.

  “Eleven thirty,” said Bryant.

  “I’ll be right over,” said Hamish. “Does he wear gloves?”

  “No.”

  “Anyway, I’ll be there and don’t do anything to make him suspicious.”

  He turned to Elspeth. “He isn’t wearing gloves.”

  “We forgot,” said Elspeth. “There’s such things as indelible dye. I’ll get my camera crew and follow you over.”

  “Don’t do that,” said Hamish sharply. “It could be dangerous.”

  “If it weren’t for me,” shouted Elspeth, “you wouldn’t have got this tip-off.”

  Hamish realised he was wasting time arguing. He left the hotel by way of the kitchen, shouting to Clarry, the chef, to look after his animals.

  Golspie is a village in Sutherland, lying on the North Sea coast in the shadow of Ben Bhraggie. It has a population about fifteen hundred. Hamish remembered that The Fine Fish had been written up as a gourmet restaurant.

  He parked a little way away from the restaurant. He walked towards it and looked in the windows. He saw to his dismay that the restaurant was still full. But there was Laurent, moving from table to table.

  Afterwards, he was amazed at his own stupidity. Why hadn’t he just waited until the restaurant had closed? Perhaps, he thought later, he was frightened that if he waited the owner might betray by nervousness that something was wrong, and it was vitally important that he be ahead of Elspeth and her television team.

  Again, afterwards, he realised how lucky he was that there wasn’t a television set in the restaurant or that no local had come bursting in to say they had seen the maître d’ on television.

  Laurent was flambéing crêpes suzette when he looked across the restaurant and saw Hamish Macbeth. He stood frozen for a moment as Hamish approached and then he threw the flaming pancakes straight at Hamish.

  Hamish ducked. Diners screamed and dived under the tables. Laurent desperately threw everything he could get his hands on at Hamish: bottles of wine, plates of food, and vases of flowers. A waiter seized him and Laurent punched him in the face and sent him flying. Then he shot through the kitchen door with Hamish in pursuit.

  Elspeth and her team tried to get into the restaurant but their way was blocked by escaping diners.

  By dint of upsetting hot pots of food and sauce and sending them crashing down to block Hamish’s way, Laurent fled out into the backyard of the restaurant. Hamish skidded in a pool of sauce and fell heavily.

  He struggled to his feet, slipping and sliding and hanging on to a counter to lever himself up. “Help me catch him,” he shouted to the staff who were standing, staring openmouthed.

  He rushed outside into the yard. No sign of Laurent. He jumped over the wall of the yard. He looked to right and left. He should phone for backup. But he would be in deep trouble for having tried to make the arrest on his own, and he no longer had any hold over Daviot.

  He shone his torch down on the ground outside the yard. There was a large muddy area but no footprints other than his own.

  He turned to a waiter who had joined him.

  “Is there a way into the restaurant from the yard?”

  “Aye, there are steps down to the cellar.”

  Hamish jumped back over the wall, calling to the waiter to follow him and show him where the door was.

  “You can get to the cellars from inside,” said the waiter. “This end is where the stores are loaded in.”

  He led the way to a door. Hamish tried it. It was locked.

  “Get me the key!” he shouted. The waiter ran off and came back not only with the key but with Hugo Bryan, four waiters, and Elspeth and her team.

  “Stand back!” shouted Hamish. “Mr. Bryan, make damn sure the inner door to the cellars is locked and barricade it with something.”

  The key was handed to Hamish. “How did Laurent lock it?” he asked.

  “He’s got a key,” said a waiter.

  Hamish’s key would not work, Laurent having left his key in the lock on the other side. Hamish took a thin piece of steel out of his pocket and began to poke and fiddle in the lock until he heard the key drop down on the other side. He unlocked the door. A flight of stairs led downwards. He pressed the light switch but no light came on. Laurent had probably taken out the bulb just in case his hiding place was discovered.

  The moonlight shone down into the cellar from the open door, showing boxes of stores piled up.

  “Come out, Laurent!” shouted Hamish. “You can’t escape now.”

  A can of peeled tomatoes came sailing out of the darkness with deadly accuracy and struck Hamish full on the forehead. He collapsed to his knees.

  Laurent raced out of the cellar and into the full glare of a television camera. With a roar of rage, Hugo and his waiters jumped on him and bore him to the ground just as Hamish came staggering up the steps, blood streaming down his face from where the edge of the can had cut him.

  Hamish wiped his face with a handkerchief and handcuffed Laurent and cautioned him.

  As Hamish led Laurent out through the restaurant, he said to Hugo, who was following them, “I’m right sorry for the mess o’ your restaurant.”

  But Hugo’s eyes were shining. “Man, just think o’ the publicity. My restaurant will be world-famous.”

  Mr. Daviot was drinking a cup of cocoa and guiltily watching his favourite programme, Sex in the Suburbs, when an announcer’s voice broke in. “We interrupt this programme to bring you a report of the capture of the most wanted man in Britain.”

  And there on the screen was footage of Hamish Macbeth arresting Laurent.

  Grim-faced, Daviot phoned Jimmy, who said he had known nothing about it until a moment ago when Hamish had phoned to say he had Laurent locked up in Lochdubh police station.

  A convoy of police cars descended on Lochdubh. Not only was Laurent taken off for questioning but Hamish was as well.

  Hamish began to wonder during the long night who the villain was as Daviot questioned him and questioned him as to why he had seen fit to go it alone.

  Hamish stubbornly said that Hugo had phoned him. Before Daviot had arrived in Lochdubh, Hamish had phoned Hugo and got him to agree to saying he had phoned Hamish instead of the television station. So Hamish said that he had to check it out because there had been so many false reports.

  Why had Elspeth Grant decided that Laurent might have blacked himself up as a disguise?

  “Ask her,” said Hamish, who had taken the precaution of phoning Elspeth as well. “But if it hadnae been for her grand idea, we’d never have got him.”

  At last Hamish managed to ask if Laurent had said anything. “Not a word,” said Daviot bitterly. “But we’ve got him for the attempted murder of you.”

  “Let me speak to him,” begged Hamish.

  Daviot was about to refuse, but he wanted everything tied up and maybe this maverick police sergeant could break Laurent’s silence.

  “Take Anderson with you,” he said curtly.

  Laurent stared at Jimmy and Hamish, his eyes gleaming with contempt in his blackened face.

  After the preliminaries were over, Hamish said, “Look here, you wee scunner, at the moment the charge is the attempted murder o’ me. But we are also going to charge you with torturing and killing Gaunt, the Southerns, and Liz Bentley.”

&nbs
p; “You have no proof,” said Laurent.

  “Circumstantial evidence,” said Hamish. “Och, I’m fed up wi’ this, Jimmy. How about old-fashioned police methods?”

  “Meaning?” said Jimmy looking puzzled.

  “Switch off the camera and tape,” said Hamish grimly. He waited until Jimmy had done so and then slammed his baton down on the table, making Laurent jump.

  “Listen, wee man. I’m going to beat the hell out of you and leave no marks. Stand up!”

  “You would not dare!” said Laurent.

  Hamish raised his baton and sent it whistling past Laurent’s head. Laurent screamed in fear.

  “Missed you,” said Hamish. “But how’s about this?”

  “I’ll talk!” screamed Laurent.

  Jimmy started up the tape and the video camera.

  “Begin!” snapped Hamish. “Begin with Liz Bentley at Cromish.”

  His Quebecois accent becoming thicker in his distress, Laurent haltingly told his story.

  Gaunt had wanted the drugs for himself. He had romanced Liz Bentley and had hidden them in her cottage. She had threatened to talk and so he had first tried to frighten her into silence, and when that hadn’t worked, he had killed her. He still hadn’t wanted to tell Dubois where the drugs were, so Dubois had advanced on him with a blowtorch and that was when Gaunt had died of a heart attack. The Southerns? They couldn’t talk because Gaunt hadn’t told them where the drugs were and so Dubois had tortured them and killed them.

  It had all started as Hamish had guessed. The Canadian police had got wind of a large drug haul which had made its way to Canada from Colombia. They did not know about Dubois, a shadowy figure in the crime world. He had immediately searched around for a way to get the drugs out of the country. Southern had heard about the haul and put out feelers to say he knew how to get the drugs out of the country. He would hire a large fishing vessel in Newfoundland to take them off with the drugs; Gaunt would arrange for a small boat to meet the vessel at sea and take the drugs to safety. He would hide them and then contact Dubois—which he had failed to do. So Dubois, Laurent, and Xavier had gone in search of them.

  Laurent knew nothing about the diamond rings, one found in Liz’s shed and the other at the schoolhouse. Hamish could only guess it was some way of them identifying each other.

  “I’ll have you for assault,” said Laurent, and then he began to cry.

  “Did you see me assault him?” Hamish asked Jimmy.

  “Not me,” said Jimmy. “Let’s leave this wee bastard to cool for a bit.”

  Epilogue

  Nine fathom deep he had followed us

  From the land of mist and snow.

  —Coleridge

  Reports in triplicate. Reports piled on reports. Long interviews with every customer who had been in the restaurant when Laurent was arrested, along with interviews with all the staff. Then all those had to be typed out by Hamish and sent to Strathbane.

  He was called up before several committees of hard-eyed men headed by Chief Superintendent Douglas to explain his odd behaviour in deciding to go to Golspie on his own. One waspish little man whose rank Hamish did not know was vehement in claiming that Hamish was a publicity seeker who had made sure a television team would be there at the restaurant.

  At the end of it all, he felt he had saved his police station by a whisker and all thanks to Daviot, who had stuck to his word that the Lochdubh police station would be safe. But there was one last question. Why was there no report about those diamond rings: no report about searching jewellers throughout Scotland to see who had commissioned the rings?

  Hamish said patiently that he had assumed that the special force or Strathbane would have covered that. Jimmy Anderson was sent for.

  He said he had sent out a description of the rings to every jeweller in the United Kingdom but had not met with any success, so he supposed the rings had been made by some crooked jeweller somewhere or other. “It’s all in my report,” he said impatiently.

  “There is no such report on the files,” retorted Douglas.

  “I gave my report to Chief Detective Inspector Blair,” said Jimmy.

  Blair was summoned. He furiously denied that he had received such a report. “I still have it on my computer along with a report of the date I gave it to you,” said Jimmy. “I’ll get it now.”

  “Leave us and take Macbeth with you,” said Douglas. “No, Mr. Blair, you stay.”

  “Blair’s toast,” said Jimmy cheerfully as he and Hamish walked down the stairs together. “Say hullo to your new boss. Me!”

  “Don’t bet on it,” said Hamish gloomily. “Daviot will be doing his best to hang on to his creature.”

  And that was exactly what Daviot was doing. Wanting to avoid promotion and so be transferred to Strathbane, Hamish had let Blair take the credit for a number of crimes that he himself had solved. So Daviot was reading out a list of Blair’s “successes” while Blair sat with his eyes lowered, the very picture of modesty.

  Apart from learning that Laurent really was his first name and his second name was Dejeux, and apart from the fact that Laurent was to stand trial in Edinburgh, Hamish heard no more about the case. The paperwork was finished and there were new and exciting news stories to take the press away.

  It was as if it all suddenly went quiet. Christine Dalray phoned to invite Hamish to dinner but he put her off because a good part of him hankered after Anka. The scar on his forehead where he had been struck by that tin of tomatoes had healed up, and his fiery hair had grown back in over the old wound.

  He was just thinking about going to Braikie to see if he could persuade the elusive Anka to go on a date with him when the phone rang. It was Dr. Williams. “Can you get up here?” he pleaded. “She’s gone mad!”

  “What happened?”

  “I tried to shoot that fox.”

  “Oh, my,” said Hamish. “I’ll be there right away.”

  As he drove north, his thoughts turned to Elspeth. He knew she would have been firmly instructed to keep clear of him by Strathbane. He knew he was forbidden from making any statements to the media, but he thought she might as least have called to see how he was.

  It was a grey, misty day. No colour in the landscape. He drove on until Cromish came into view through the mist like a sort of Brigadoon.

  A little huddle of curious villagers was standing outside Samantha’s cottage. Screams and cries were coming from inside. The door was open. Hamish walked in.

  Samantha was sitting at the kitchen table. Dr. Williams was backed against the kitchen dresser, looking helpless. Broken crockery lay scattered over the floor. Between sobs, Samantha threw back her head and let out an eldritch scream.

  Hamish gave her a firm slap on the face. She stared at him in shock. He handed her a clean handkerchief and said, “Behave yourself!”

  He turned to Dr. Williams. “What exactly happened?”

  “We were sleeping at my place last night. The mist hadn’t come down and you know it never really gets that dark this time o’ year. I woke up and she was standing by the window. I asked what was up. She said, ‘Oh, it’s Foxy. Come and look.’ I went and got my shotgun and went out into the garden. It was a great dog fox. I took aim but she jerked my arm up. Then she went into hysterics and fled the house in her nightie. She let me in this morning, screaming I was a murderer, throwing plates at me along with her engagement ring.”

  “Go and get your bag and give her a sedative. Hurry!”

  Hamish sat down next to Samantha and put an arm round her shoulder. “I thought you had come to your senses about foxes,” he said.

  She gulped and gave a choked sob. “I’d heard about the seer in Lochdubh.”

  “Aye. Angus Macdonald. Go on.”

  “It was weird. I told him about how silly I had been about that fox. I really wanted my fortune told. He closed his eyes and he said in a faraway voice that Foxy was actually the soul of someone who had come back and should be treated with respect. I did not tell Harol
d but I decided to protect that fox with my life if necessary.”

  What the hell was Angus playing at? Hamish was determined to see him as soon as possible.

  “I cannot live amongst such savagery,” said Samantha. “I am going back to Edinburgh.”

  “Good idea,” said Hamish, thinking that Dr. Williams was well out of it.

  When the doctor returned, Hamish coaxed Samantha into swallowing a sedative and together they got her into bed.

  They retreated to the kitchen. “Man, the woman’s unbalanced,” said Hamish. “And you a doctor.”

  Dr. Williams shrugged. “The sex was good. But I can’t have anything to do with her after this.”

  “The trouble was caused when the seer in Lochdubh told her that fox was the soul of someone who had come back. I’m going to see him and find out what he was up to. Let’s get out of here.”

  When they walked out to where the villagers were waiting, to Hamish’s alarm Dr. Williams told them what the seer had said and that it had turned Samantha’s mind.

  Hamish pulled the doctor away and when they were clear of the crowd, he whispered fiercely, “You’ve got Mr. Foxy for life. Not one o’ that superstitious lot are going to touch the beast now.”

  Once in Lochdubh, Hamish went straight to see Angus Macdonald. “No, I havenae brought ye a present, you auld fraud,” roared Hamish.

  “Come in and calm down,” said Angus. “I see a fox in your eyes.”

  “And I feel like blacking yours,” said Hamish. “What possessed you to tell Samantha Trent that the fox was the soul of someone who had come back?”

  “Well, I ken it’s like this. I have this niece in Lochinver, Bella Macdonald, my late brother’s daughter. She’s a widow. She met Dr. Williams at a concert in Lochinver and really fancied him. They went out for a bit and all was looking hopeful when he got snared by the fox lady. Now, with her out o’ the road, my Bella stands a good chance.”

  “I’m going to tell Williams what you did,” said Hamish.