by M C Beaton
“Hamish, when I leave, can I take Sally with me? You never really took to the wee poodle.”
“Go ahead. Lugs seems happy enough when she’s either around or not around. Maybe neither of us got over losing Sonsie. Let’s have a dram and drink to your future freedom and then let’s go over this damn case. Oh, I hope it isnae someone from this village. He would be walking away with his hands handcuffed behind his back. He would make his way through the village. He would find somewhere to lie low so that he could be sober by the time we got him and say I was persecuting him.”
Hamish brought down the bottle of whisky and poured two generous measures.
“It is chust a wee idea,” said Charlie. “I mean, me, I cannae believe any woman would fancy a man like English. But the minister did. Maybe he had one on the side. Anyone in Lochdubh qualify?”
“There’s a thought,” said Hamish. “A man like English liked power over people. He must have been one hellish bank manager. Probably jerked off every time he turned down a loan.”
Charlie blushed. “Sorry,” said Hamish quickly, thinking how old-fashioned and easily shocked Charlie could be. “So who have we got?”
“I saw a wee lassie in Patel’s the other day,” said Charlie. “‘Well, look at the size o’ you!’ she says, all flirty.”
“Pretty?”
“Bit smelly. Greasy hair. Good figure.”
“Smelly in this day and age?”
“She’s staying at Mrs. Mackenzie’s boardinghouse and madam only allows one bath a week so I cannae blame her for being a wee bit ripe. Also, Mrs. Mackenzie does her washing for her but on wet days hangs it up on the pulley in the kitchen so the clothes get to smell o’ chips or mutton broth. I know that because some tourist complained about it when we were having a chat.”
“What is her name and what does she do?”
“She’s called Alison Ford and she’s a nurse at Braikie hospital.”
“So why not find digs in Braikie?”
“Says Lochdubh is cheaper.”
“Wait a bit,” said Hamish. “I cannae imagine such as Mrs. Mackenzie allowing any nookie under her sacred roof.”
Charlie often amazed Hamish by his insight. “I think to a man like English,” said Charlie, “power over someone would be more titillating than sex. Say he meets her in Braikie as if by chance, tells her about his engagement but is struck by her beauty and yaddy-yaddy.”
“We’ve won out on far-fetched ideas before this,” said Hamish. “Finish your drink and we’ll chew some peppermints and see if we can see her.”
* * *
But Mrs. Mackenzie told them that Alison was on the night shift. She finished at six in the morning.
“We’ll get her when she comes out,” said Hamish. “I could go alone but I want to keep an eye on you. I don’t trust Blair.”
* * *
Mary, Detective Chief Inspector Blair’s wife, was a worried woman. She could normally handle her husband but he had started uttering threats against Charlie Carter, not his usual drunken rant, but with something vicious at the back of his piggy eyes. Hamish’s fears began to haunt her.
So as Charlie and Hamish had an early night to prepare for the dawn drive to Braikie the next morning, Blair arrived home, cold and wet and in a beastly mood. He had managed to get himself released from hospital earlier that day. The rain was now blowing straight in from the Atlantic in gusty cold blasts.
He cursed and raved against Charlie and said he would see him in hell. He was drunk and his eyes gleamed with a wet look when he said, “But I hae the wee present for him.” To Mary’s horror he pulled a wash-leather pack out of his briefcase and produced a gun. “It’s a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum,” said Blair proudly, “and bye-bye Charlie.”
“You’re going to commit murder!” shouted Mary.
He sobered quickly, wishing he had never shown her the gun. “Just pulling your leg, lassie,” he said. “Found it lying by the side o’ the road. I’ll put it in the stockroom at headquarters tomorrow.”
“Like a dram?” asked Mary. “I’ve got the fire in the lounge. Go through, pet, and put your slippers on.”
Blair waddled off, dropping his wet coat and scarf on the floor for her to pick up. Mary went into the kitchen and poured a stiff measure of whisky. Then she went to the medicine cupboard and took out a sleeping draught hidden inside a vitamin supplement packet. She poured a generous measure into his drink. She had found the sleeping medicine to come in useful in the past when he had looked as if he was going to beat her up.
Blair was soon asleep, his mouth hanging open, snoring loudly. Mary opened the briefcase and gingerly took out the revolver. Then she phoned Mrs. Daviot. “It’s me, Mary,” she cooed. “I would be most awfully grateful if you could help me with a wee problem.”
“Anything eh cehn do to help,” said Mrs. Daviot in tones of strangulated gentility.
“My man’s just come back from the hospital and he found a revolver just lying by the roadside and he thinks it’s too late to get it to the stockroom at headquarters but I hate guns and…”
“Don’t you worry, my pet. Eh’ll get Peter to send an officer round right away.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised and a little mistaken.
—Jane Austen
There are women who are beautiful and never realise it, and there are women who are not but who think they are absolutely gorgeous and irresistible to men. Alison Ford belonged to the latter category. As she mostly chased after the unobtainable, married doctors or surgeons, she could dream that they were dying with passion for her but frightened of their wives.
Hamish said they had a few questions to ask her and suggested they move inside to the hospital canteen because the morning, although sunny, was cold. To Hamish’s disappointment, she did not seem in the least worried by their visit, and tripped ahead of them to the canteen, swaying her hips, which, in a girl only five feet tall, did not have the effect she thought it was having.
Charlie brought mugs of coffee and they settled down on plastic chairs at a plastic table.
“So what have my bad boys been up to?” she asked.
Seeing them puzzled, she laughed. “Oh, it’s some of the old boys from the geriatric ward. Always wandering off. They’re quite cunning, the way they manage to escape.”
“No, Miss Ford,” said Hamish solemnly. “It concerns your friendship with the late Paul English.”
“Who?” she asked the ceiling.
“The man who has been found murdered in a peat bog.”
“I didnae know him.”
Charlie took a gamble. “Yes, you did, Miss Ford, and you should not lie to the police. He came to you the night he was killed.”
She began to cry, or rather, to simulate crying, because when she finally removed her handkerchief from her eyes, they were dry.
“You can make a statement here or back at police headquarters,” said Hamish.
“Okay,” she said suddenly and harshly. “He phoned me, right? Said he needed help. He said to come down the fire escape to the garden at the back. I thought he looked funny handcuffed like that, but he hissed at me to get some cutters. I said I didnae have any and he called me a useless bitch. Me! He promised to ditch that minister frump and marry me. He did! I told him to take a hike.”
“Quite the contortionist,” said Hamish. “How did he manage to phone you with his hands handcuffed behind his back?”
“He must ha’ phoned me from the pub afore you put them on. We sometimes meet in the wee garden at the foot o’ the fire escape. He said a few more nasty things and went out onto the road and along the waterfront and that’s the last I saw of him.”
“What was his interest in Maisie Walters?” asked Hamish.
“Dunno. He wouldna talk about her.”
“Grant me patience,” muttered Hamish. “You say he told you he was prepared to
ditch Mrs. Walters and marry you, right? He must have said something.”
“Just that he was right tired o’ her.”
“Okay, I’ll type this up and get you to sign it. Report to the police station tomorrow morning at nine o’ clock.”
* * *
“Let’s go and call on Dick,” said Hamish. “I could do wi’ a decent cup of coffee.”
Hamish always had to fight down a feeling of jealousy when he saw Dick’s Polish wife, Anka. She was so glamorous, long-legged and auburn-haired, she was every man’s dream and yet she had settled for small, round Dick Fraser.
Anka was busy with the accounts but Dick ushered them into his comfortable living room and served them bacon baps and strong coffee.
“So,” said Dick, “yon Paul English was stabbed with maybe a sword.”
“How the hell do ye know that?” exclaimed Hamish.
“Lady Campbell-Sythe dropped by for the baps. Her husband is the pathologist they got up from Glasgow fast after it turned out wee Karen Black didn’t know an arse from an elbow. He says it looks like a flat blade that curved to a tip, like a claymore, some sort of broadsword.”
Hamish groaned. “If I tell headquarters that, Blair will have us doing a house-to-house search in the village and anyone wi’ any sense would ha’ chucked the weapon down into the peat bog.”
“He cannae have sunk that far into the peat bog,” said Charlie. “I mean, it was the handcuffs that set off the metal detector. It was dry a bit before the rain came and then that long dry spell. Folk are always dumping stuff. Maybe there’s an old car or something down there. Haven’t they got sophisticated equipment for a proper search?”
As if in answer to his question, the phone rang. It was Jimmy. “You’ve to get yourself ower here,” he said. “The bog.”
“Right,” said Hamish. He rang off and told them. “Wait a bit,” said Dick. “I’ll pack you a lunch.”
“Anka’s a lucky woman,” said Charlie.
Hamish looked huffy but refrained from saying anything.
* * *
The wind had changed round to the east when they arrived at the bog. Hamish was relieved to see that Blair was not one of the party watching the excavation.
Jimmy joined them. “Where’s your menagerie, Hamish?”
“The dogs? I left them back at the station.”
“Funny that. When Sonsie was alive, you used to take the animals everywhere.”
“Alive! What the hell do you mean?”
“Some yobs have been shooting on Ardnamurchan. They found a dead cat.”
Hamish looked wildly around as if for escape. “Steady, lad,” said Jimmy. “It’s probably not yours. Settle down. It wasnae a wild cat. Someone’s pet.”
Hamish hunched his shoulders against the wind. If only English hadn’t been such a rude womanising bastard. The Highlands were probably littered with folk dying to kill him. He longed to set off for Ardnamurchan but knew he would be in trouble if he did. Then what of English’s life before he retired? He would enjoy humiliating people in desperate need of money.
“Anything on English’s background in Stirling?” asked Hamish.
“Lots o’ nasty stuff. Insulted hundreds.”
“So why did he keep his job?”
“Like I said earlier, he didn’t. Got the golden push last year. Before that, people kept a bit quiet about it, not wanting the neighbours to know they were in debt.”
“Why isn’t Blair here?”
“Got a drug bust. Besides, he’s on the wagon. Different man entirely.”
“They’ve got something,” said Hamish. “Look, it’s someone’s old fridge. He must have landed on that, which is why he was so near the surface. Fancy a bite? Dick’s packed a big lunch.”
“Lead me to it,” said Jimmy. “Ah, the grand days of Dick Fraser. We’d be on a stakeout and in seconds, Dick would have the table and chairs out and the stove on. Blair wants houses searched for swords, but it’s daft. Have you been to an antiques fair or even a car boot sale? They’re all displayed in the open, everything from scimitars to sabres. The old days in Glasgow, they used razors. Now it’s swords. Man, is that chicken?”
Charlie said suddenly, “Has anyone talked to the Currie sisters?”
Hamish burst out laughing. “No one’s feeling that masochistic, Charlie.”
Charlie solemnly took another bite of chicken sandwich, a sip of coffee from one of Dick’s thermos flasks, and said slowly, “They see a lot. They hear a lot. If I was to go down there and be nice and patient, I might just get something.”
“Go on then,” said Hamish. “You’re a brave man. Take the Land Rover and come back for me as soon as you can.”
* * *
Charlie bought a tin of shortbread from the gift shop at the hotel before going on into the village and knocking at the door of the Currie sisters’ little cottage on the waterfront. Normally the sisters would have been offended at the gift as they considered they baked the best shortbread for miles around, but the tin had a romantic painting of Bonnie Prince Charlie bowing before Flora Macdonald, and the elderly twins became quite misty-eyed as they looked at it. Then Charlie was ushered into their overcrowded little parlour and plied with scones and tea. In a roundabout way, Charlie talked about his longing to get back to the isles and then said the present case had “fair sickened” him. He said he considered the ladies very noticing and perceptive. Had they, for example, heard or seen anything strange the night Paul English was killed?
Charlie had become expert at tuning out Jessie’s chorus of what her sister had just said. He was made to swear on a large Bible that he would not reveal his source or the murderer’s cohorts would come after them. The sisters watched a great deal of American television. A savage squall of rain hit the window and Charlie wished they would hurry up because Hamish must be getting a right soaking.
* * *
Hamish listened in amazement when Charlie, on his return, told him what the sisters had witnessed. Woken by the shouting outside the bar, they had put on their dressing gowns and gone outside to the garden gate. They saw the fuss die down and, as it was a mild night, were examining their flowers when suddenly they saw Paul stumbling along the waterfront. They had seen him go round the side of Mrs. Mackenzie’s boardinghouse and then come out again. They hid in the bushes and he went past. Then his voice came faintly back to them, saying something like “Well, you took your time,” and after that nothing.
“If only they would find that phone,” said Hamish, when Charlie reported to him, “and if they do, let’s hope they have the skill to get a number out of it. He must have phoned someone else before he was attacked in the pub.”
Jimmy’s phone rang. He listened, scowling, and when he had rung off, he said, “Bad business. One o’ you had better get down to the village. A wee lad has tried to hang hisself in his father’s garage.”
“Which wee lad?” demanded Charlie.
“Johnny Derry.”
“The one that was the menopause baby. Must be about eleven years old now. I’ll go,” volunteered Charlie. “I know the family.”
“Maybe bullying,” said Hamish. “He’s a wee chap and his father is the physics teacher at his school. Check his mobile phone and his iPad. Social media be damned. Social murder.”
* * *
The ambulance had left when Charlie arrived so he raced after it to Braikie hospital. A nurse at the desk on the children’s ward told Charlie that the boy was all right, just a bruised neck.
A long corridor led to the children’s ward. Charlie Carter turned that corner and fell very deeply in love.
At the end of the corridor was a six-foot-tall vision in a police uniform. Naturally golden hair was pulled back under a cap. Her face was a pale disk in front of Charlie’s suddenly blurred eyes as he walked towards her as if in his sleep.
He took her hand in his and said, “Will you marry me?”
And she replied, “Oh, probably. You’ve come about the wee boy?”
“I am not in the way of falling in love,” said Charlie. “Did the boy have a mobile?”
“Yes. Full of nasty messages calling him a wimp and saying he’s gay and worse than that.”
Her pale skin was delicately tinged with pink. “The parents are with him. I thought they were his grandparents.”
“I’ll be having a word with all the wee bastards at that school and I’ll bring the fear of the law, hell, and damnation down on their feral heads,” said Charlie, “and then what about dinner this evening?”
“I don’t know. It depends how long they want me to stay with the boy, but Victim Support should be along soon.”
“What brought on this persecution?”
“The wee lad had a girlfriend. She started texting him about a thousand times a day so he said he was dropping her.”
Charlie walked into the ward.
* * *
Mr. Derry was sitting a little way away from the bed, his head in his hands. His wife was holding her son’s hand. Both parents were grey-haired and in their fifties.
Charlie tapped the father on the shoulder and jerked his head to indicate the man should follow him outside. “How’s the wee chap?” asked Charlie.
“He’ll have a sore throat. Why didn’t he tell us?”
“It’s difficult. Will you be suing the lassie’s family? What’s her name?”
“Nessie Burns, and a damn wee Lolita if there ever was one.”
“I would advise you to let the matter drop after I’ve put the fear of God into the lot o’ them. The boy’s still got to go to school and you’ve got to work there.”
“I don’t. Physics teachers are in demand. We can move.”
“It might be healthier for the boy to see it through. I’m telling you, by the time I’m finished with them, your lad is going to be the most popular boy in the school.”
* * *
When Charlie strode into the assembly hall of the Cnothan elementary school, Johnny Derry’s classmates were standing with their parents. On a table lay a selection of mobile phones and iPads. Next term they would all be bussed into Strathbane High School.
