by M C Beaton
When Hamish had gone, Larry ate his Danish and started to read the copy of War and Peace that Hamish had left behind. By two in the morning, he was fast asleep.
Something woke him an hour later. He sensed a movement to his right. But before he could leap to his feet, a bedpan was brought down crashing onto his skull, crushing it, and he slumped to the ground.
Two minutes later the lifeless body of Alison lay in a welter of pulled-out tubes and a figure slipped quietly away into the night.
* * *
Hamish was roused before dawn by a hysterical call from the hospital and alerted headquarters before driving to Braikie. The news was as bad as could be. Not only was Alison dead but it was touch and go with Larry Coomb and doubtful if he would be any more than a vegetable if he survived.
A forensic team were busy and he retreated with Jimmy to the canteen. “Nobody saw anything,” said Jimmy gloomily. “CCTV? Forget it. Doesnae work. Och, what’s going on here? The whole thing is weird. I phoned Blair and he says in this scary-polite voice, ‘I will be over later, Anderson, but I trust you to handle it in your usual competent manner.’”
“I’m right glad to hear he’s in Strathbane and not over in Uist trying to kill Charlie,” said Hamish. “There seems to be madness all around. This killer is an amateur who just takes chances. And is getting away with it. We’ve been thinking that English was killed because of his rudeness but it could be something in his past. I’ll need all the reports from Stirling. Maybe there’s someone he made bankrupt. Something like that.”
“You should be down questioning the staff,” said Jimmy.
“You’ve got a whole team doing that,” Hamish pointed out. “Let me go back to the station and read all the notes about when he was a bank manager. It’s just a hunch.”
“Oh, all right. But if Blair comes chapping at the door, pretend you’re out.”
* * *
It was a grey misty day as if in mourning for the young policeman who, it appeared, might not survive. As Hamish approached Lochdubh, he was aware of an odd feeling of menace in the air and gave a superstitious shiver.
He entered the police station cautiously but there was only Lugs to bark a welcome. Hamish made a pot of strong coffee, fed Lugs some sausages, and settled down at the computer in his office. After an hour of searching, he found one possibility. A local Stirling shopkeeper had been made bankrupt and had hanged himself. He had left a suicide note in which he blamed Paul English. Hamish reached for the phone to call Stirling police but then hesitated. He longed to interview the family himself. He read more of the notes and his eyes brightened. Why had that not been noticed before? His wife and son had moved to Crask up the coast, only a short drive away.
He put Lugs in the front seat of the Land Rover and phoned Jimmy. “Did no one follow up the Crask lead?” he asked. “Who was on it?”
“MacNab. But he was about to go when Blair was accused and then I think it got forgotten. Let me know if you get anything.”
Hamish drove on. He parked in the little main street of Crask. The mist had got thicker and seemed to blot out all sound. He went into the general store and asked directions to Lorne Road and was told it was two streets to the right as you left the shop.
The house was on a council estate. Often people who lived on estates such as these bought their homes and the whole place took on a prosperous look, but this one had an air of decay and hopelessness about it. The gardens did not boast flowers or plants but pieces of rusting machinery or old cars. He squinted at his piece of paper. Mrs. Trimble. He hoped she was at home.
At first it seemed as if she had gone out. He knocked again, loudly, and shouted, “Police!”
A light went on upstairs. Then the curtains were drawn back, the window opened, and a frowsty, bloated-looking woman stared down. “Gie me a moment,” she shouted.
It was more like twenty minutes before the front door opened and she ushered him into a front room. Hamish waited patiently while she darted about, picking up magazines and empty cider bottles and stacking them in a corner.
“Sit doon,” she ordered in a rasping voice. She had a sagging figure in harem pants and a T-shirt. Her blonde hair showed black at the roots, and her face was crisscrossed with red broken veins. “So what’s our Bertha been up to?”
“Bertha?”
“My daughter. She’s in Glasgow. Got done for drugs last week.”
“It’s not about her,” said Hamish. “It is about Paul English.”
“Paul…Oh, yon sod. Made us broke. We had a wee toy shop. Was all right but we let folk run up a bill at Christmas and pay in the next few months. We asked thon bank manager as usual to wait and he ups and makes us bankrupt. My man took tae the bottle and then topped hisself. I went down tae that bank and told English I’d kill him. He called the polis on me. Bastard! You find out who killed him and I’ll shake that man by the hand, so I will.”
“Have you ever visited Lochdubh?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, I went down tae yon peat bog where he was found dead. I wanted to check out he really was dead.”
“But were you in, say, Cnothan, before he died? Or did you meet him?”
“Hadnae a clue where he’d gone until I heard about the murder. We were a good family and he wrecked us. Bertha on the streets and me rotting away in this dump.”
“Can you think of anyone else from the Stirling days that might actually have murdered him?”
“I could think better, sonny, wi’ a wee drap o’ cider in me.”
“Wait.”
Hamish went back to the shop and bought a bottle of cider, feeling guilty, but trying to persuade himself it was for the better good.
“Ta.” She seized the bottle, unscrewed the top and took a massive slug, slowly wiped her mouth with the back of one fat, swollen red hand, and said, “I call tae mind he had this fiancée. Whit was the lassie’s name? La de da. Schoolteacher. He dumped her, she took an overdose but got pumped out. Left Stirling. Caro something or other.”
* * *
Hamish drove back to Lochdubh and to his notes. He phoned the school and found out that a Miss Caro Fleming had left several years ago and last heard was resident in Helmsdale but they did not have her address.
As he took the long drive to the east coast and Lochdubh fell behind him, the mist began to thin and disappear and he had an odd feeling of having escaped from some sort of evil.
Lugs began to wag his plume of a tail and Hamish realised for the first time that his dog had been very subdued the last few months and maybe had been missing Sonsie more than he had thought.
He was wearing civilian clothes because he did not want to offend any local copper by appearing to poach on his beat. But no one seemed to have heard of a Caro Fleming, the sun had come out, and the day was sticky and warm. Hamish stopped in a café and ordered a pot of tea. As a faint hope, he asked the woman serving him if she knew of a Caro Fleming. She looked surprised and said, “That’s me.”
Hamish produced his warrant card and asked her if he could have a chat about Paul English. Two women came in and Caro said, “Not now. I close up at six o’ clock. Come back then.”
Hamish was relieved that Caro showed no signs of having taken to drink or drugs. She was a tall, flat-chested woman with a long face like that in a Modigliani painting and she had long thin hands and feet.
He looked at his watch. Only half an hour to wait and the tea was very good. With Lugs at his feet, Hamish felt at ease for the first time in months.
* * *
“I hope this won’t be too painful for you,” he began, “but I am investigating the murder of Paul English and I would like to know a bit more about his character.”
“He was a rude, cruel, and unfeeling bastard. All that man ever loved was money. It’s only amazing that he hadn’t robbed his own bank. I tell you, he wore an anorak with an inside pocket and in that pocket he kept a wad of banknotes. Said he liked to feel them next to his heart. And to think I nearly married him!”
“
What stopped you?”
“Wait till I close up. It’s a quiet day anyway.” She put the CLOSED sign on the door and came back and sat down. “More tea?”
“Yes, please.”
“So, it was the week afore the wedding. I was paying. ‘Lash out,’ says he. ‘Wear white. I want the world to know I’ve bagged the prize.’ Now Maggie Friend, her what runs the chippy along the road, she’s aye been jealous of me. ‘It’s your money he wants,’ says she. ‘Betcha he’s got you to make out a will in his favour already.’ Well, you know something? He had. But he was so loving, I couldn’t believe it. It was when he found out I was going to wear a secondhand dress and said I should wear only the best and I could afford it, I said I had always been canny with money and I’d seen this programme about starving children and so I had changed my will to leave all my money to the charity.” A tear ran down her long nose and plopped onto the tablecloth. “That’s when he told me straight that his only interest in me was money. He dragged me over to the mirror and jeered at my reflection. Then he walked out and that was the last I saw of him. I’m glad he’s dead.”
Hamish patiently asked her where she had been on the night Paul was murdered and she said she had been at a choir rehearsal in the church. “I had a lucky escape,” she said sadly, “even though it was so humiliating. He was a dirty beast.”
* * *
Hamish drove slowly back to Lochdubh. He realised he had always imagined the murderer would turn out to be a man. But what if it was a woman? What of the minister that the little girl claimed to have seen with Paul in the vestry? He was sure if he tried to talk to her again, all that it would gain for the lassie was another beating. He turned off, took the road to Cnothan, and stopped outside the manse.
The minister, Maisie Walters, answered the door. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Jake and I were about to have supper. Can you come back tomorrow?”
“It is just the one question,” said Hamish. “May I come in?” Jake, he wondered. Who is Jake?
“For a moment.” She stood aside. Hamish removed his cap and walked into the front room where a table was set at the bay window. A small grey-haired man rose at his entrance.
“This is one of our elders, Jake Ingles,” said Maisie. “What do you want to know?”
“I don’t think you have ever been asked. Where were you the night Paul English was murdered?”
“Good heavens!” cried Jake. “Never say you suspect our minster!”
“Mrs. Walters?”
“I was working in my study on a sermon. Before that I’d taken evening service. My car was parked outside here where anyone could see it. The light was on in the study and anyone passing would have seen me at the desk by the window. Now, if that is all, our supper is getting cold. Do not come back without a good reason.”
“One more thing. Where were you last night? Did you go to Braikie?”
“I was here in my bed.”
Hamish walked to the doorway and then turned around. “Did Paul English ever ask you to make out a will in his favour?”
“Why would he do that?”
“Seemed to make a habit of it,” said Hamish, studying her face.
“Nonsense. Now if you’ve quite finished…”
Hamish left. He was sure she had been lying.
* * *
As he drove down into Lochdubh, he could feel menace in the very air. He stopped on the waterfront where Archie Maclean was sitting on the wall, smoking a cigarette. Hamish had a sudden sharp longing for a cigarette but fought against it. He lifted Lugs out and then joined Archie on the seawall.
“Grand evening,” said Hamish.
“Aye. Good few tourists this year, but something’s bad.”
“Like what?”
“Folk are sniping and bitching.”
“Why?”
“Dinnae ask me. It’s something in the air.”
“Unsolved murders poison the very atmosphere,” said Hamish.
“How’s yon cat?”
“Hanging in there. I’ll need to make a decision soon. What do you know of the minister at Cnothan?”
“Mrs. Walters? Not much. You should be asking our minister.”
“Should ha’ thought o’ that. I’ll go now.”
* * *
Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s wife, answered the door and glared up at Hamish. “If you’ve come mooching for a free coffee, you are not getting one.”
“I’ve come to see the minister,” said Hamish. “For heffen’s sake, woman, now I’ve seen everything. You’re wearing a tweed pinafore.”
“It is just an old bit of cloth,” said Mrs Wellington, who was famous for always being clad in tweed, winter or summer. “You’ll find Mr. Wellington in the study.”
Mr. Wellington looked up from writing a sermon as Hamish entered. “Thinking about getting married again?” he asked. “Just my little joke. I can see it’s not that.”
Hamish removed his cap and ran a hand through his fiery hair. “What do you know about the minister Mrs. Walters?”
“Not very much. I was surprised because I took services at Cnothan as well as here. But she seemed determined to get the church. I believe she preaches very impassioned sermons. She does not like sex.”
“In what way?”
“I gather she thinks it should be confined to the marriage bed. She is constantly writing letters to the newspapers and television complaining about nudity and explicit sex.”
“Odd coming from a woman who’s been married.”
“Well, do you know, but it is a sad thing, there are still women who are so horrified by their introduction to intercourse that they say ‘Never again.’” The minister looked sad. Bet that’s what happened to you, thought Hamish. Then he thought of Priscilla’s coldness and wondered again if something had happened to her long before he knew her to make her so passionless.
“Would you say such as Maisie Walters could murder someone?”
“Frankly, no. She is too self-satisfied and always right. I think he was murdered by someone in a rage.”
“Unfortunately, he put so many people in a rage, I don’t know where to start. And while the murderer is out there, there’s this nasty feeling all round the village.”
“It’s the violet nights,” said Mr. Wellington, half to himself. “It never gets really dark in summer, just this odd gloaming. People think that’s when the fairies come out. I’ll try to think of something for the community to do. Some charity work to bring us all together.”
“Let me know when you do,” said Hamish.
* * *
Charlie and Annie were married in Lochdubh church on a fine summer’s day. Annie wore a white wedding dress of silk chiffon and had a coronet of pearls lent to her by Mrs. Halburton-Smythe on her head. They came from miles around. The celebrations went all night and into the next day. Priscilla tried to suggest to her father that he might leave the couple alone for a few weeks but he said they didn’t mind and so eventually went off in the wedding limousine, sitting in the back with the poodle on his knee.
Hamish wondered who headquarters would send to replace Charlie. The spare bedroom at the station was now full of junk and he would have to clear it out. He realised with a pang that he was going to miss Charlie’s good-natured company. The news about Larry Coomb’s possible recovery was more hopeful.
* * *
A week after the wedding, he was strolling along the water-front when his eye was caught by a poster wrapped round a lamppost. It said, HELP RAISE FUNDS TO SAVE THE CAT.
“Mr. Wellington’s idea,” said Angela Brodie as she walked up to him. “We all know it’s costing a lot. There’s to be a ceilidh in the church hall this Saturday. Mr. Patel is cooking up haggis burgers. Mrs. Halburton-Smythe has contributed three cases of prosciutto because she says it’s cheap rubbish and they shouldn’t be serving it at the castle. It’s ten pounds a ticket. There’s even two coachloads from Inverness coming up for the shindig.”
“If it gets out that S
onsie is a wild cat, I’ll be in trouble,” said Hamish.
“Don’t worry. No one’s going to blab.”
“Oh, dear,” said Hamish. “Now I feel guilty. If it was for starving kids in Africa, there wouldn’t be this interest. It’s always animals that people are prepared to pay to rescue.”
“Cheer up. It’s being done for the village more than you. There’s been a bad atmosphere in Lochdubh.”
* * *
Mrs. Wellington had thawed and given the money-raising venture her blessing when she realised she and her line dancers could put on their Stetsons and fringed skirts and perform to “All My Exes Live in Texas.”
The Currie sisters were to be allowed to sing one verse of “Come into the Garden, Maud,” and the local schoolchildren were to perform the Scottish dance the Petronella. Then the buffet would be declared open and after that, dancing for all.
To Hamish’s delight, Charlie and Annie phoned to say they would be there, and Dick and Anka from the bakery were also coming and contributing trays of cakes.
The party was well under way when the door of the church hall opened and Detective Chief Inspector Blair walked in. Behind him came Jimmy Anderson, who went quickly to Hamish’s side. “Dinnae fash yerself, laddie,” he whispered. “He’s like a lamb these days.”
And sure enough, Blair didn’t drink anything stronger than Coke and after fifteen minutes took his leave. He had not looked at Annie once.
“Isn’t your pal George coming?” Hamish asked Charlie.
“There’s a wee bit o’ trouble there,” said Charlie. “There’s this widow, Fran Mackay, near us in Uist and she’s set her cap at George.”
“Does she know he’s married?”
“’Course she does. Annie told her straight. But she’s got these great boobs and they seem to fascinate George. He’s beginning to think his wife wouldn’t mind a divorce.”
“Can’t he have an affair?”
“George is hardly the affair type o’ fellow.”
“Is he still a snob?”
“Not when it comes to me!”
