Death of an Honest Man

by M C Beaton

  “Not telling the whole truth is a form of lying, wouldn’t you say?”

  She suddenly went into a rage. “Get out o’ here. I don’t need to answer stupid questions. Out!”

  Outside, Hamish knew he should try to find this Mr. Alexander, but he longed to spend the day looking for his cat. Yes, he finally admitted, he had probably made a mistake, the cat might not be Sonsie but she could be injured. He could send Silas but it was getting late and Silas was so in awe of the church that he wouldn’t really press this Mr. Alexander.

  He decided to go back to his notes and try to find Mr. Alexander in the morning. He was pleased to find that Silas had already found a phone number and address for the elder which he had got from the Lochdubh minister, Mr. Wellington. So Hamish walked up the moors at the back of the station, whistling for the cat the way he used to whistle for Sonsie. But nothing disturbed the calmness of the evening. He walked sadly back indoors. He had wasted emotion, time, and money under the delusion that he had found Sonsie again. He felt almost as if he had been bewitched. The villagers had been frightened of the cat, and Elspeth had left a message for him saying she could not visit him until he got rid of the animal.

  The clay pigeon prize money paid the rest of the vet’s bill with a third left over, so Hamish suggested they go to the Italian restaurant and treat themselves.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Silas, “that I should tell Mr. Blair I will not spy on you, and if he insists I will need to report him.”

  “Don’t do that,” said Hamish quickly. “I think Blair is still not quite right in the head and can be dangerous. Just feed him a bit here and there. He thinks I’m stupid most of the time so he won’t be all that surprised. He thinks I solve cases by sheer luck, that’s all. I mean, I could be wasting time and effort thinking that Mrs. Mackenzie knows something and was being bribed in a complicated way. But I’ve got nothing else. I mean, the woman is famous for spying on her boarders. If she didn’t have such cheap rates, she wouldn’t have anyone at all.”

  “Maybe it could have been like this,” said Silas. “They want to make a big show of the presentation. What if it’s won by some criminal or blowsy slag from those tower blocks by the docks? Won’t look good in the papers. They decided to massage it a bit. Get someone worthy to win it, someone outside Strathbane. So they hit on Mrs. Mackenzie.”

  “Could have gone wrong. Mrs. Mackenzie is the kind who might think buying a raffle ticket was gambling and a fast track to hell. I’ll know better when I meet this Mr. Alexander.”

  * * *

  Silas woke suddenly during the night with a feeling of dread. The door of his bedroom was nudged open and then Lugs jumped on his bed and lay trembling beside him. There seemed to be an air of menace enveloping the station. And then it was gone.

  That damn cat, thought Silas. It hasn’t left. It’s lurking around somewhere.

  * * *

  Mr. Jonathan Alexander, a retired coal merchant, lived up on the moors outside Strathbane in a granite stone villa on a windy hilltop. He was at home and ushered them into a cold living room where little icy draughts scuttled across the stone floor, covered only in a hooked rug. The walls held bookshelves full of dark leather-bound tomes. One small paned window rattled in the gale.

  He was a tall, knobbly sort of man. His cadaverous face had two knobs above his pale grey eyes, and his large hands were knobbly with arthritis.

  Hamish’s curiosity overcame him. “Why build your house up on the hill where there’s no shelter?”

  “That was my father’s doing. He always was a silly old fool,” said Mr. Alexander with surprising viciousness from one who was supposed to be a Christian. “So what brings the police to my humble abode? I could be of help to you. I was in the Black Watch for my sins.”

  The man’s a walking cliché, thought Hamish.

  “A Mrs. Mackenzie won an expensive television set in a raffle.”

  “Oh, aye? And what would that be doing wi’ me?”

  “As it was for a worthy cause and the TV was very expensive, we wondered if there was any way that the winner could have been chosen?”

  “Well, don’t ask me. I just do all the work while the rest o’ the worthies ponce about.”

  “But is it possible?”

  “Naw. Daft idea. Too complicated.”

  He had begun to look almost truculent. “Look, laddie. My corns hurt and I want ma tea. Bugger off.”

  “So that’s that,” said Hamish back at the station. “It was just a mad idea of mine. You know, in books it’s always the one you’d least suspect, whereas in real life it’s usually the obvious one.”

  “Who’s that, sir?”

  “As you’re not cheeky, you can call me Hamish. Oh, whatsername? The minister at Cnothan.”

  “But I’ve gone over and over the interviews. You weren’t the only one. Jimmy Anderson and Blair both interviewed her. On the night of English’s murder and at the estimated time, she was seen by passing villagers in the manse, in her study, working at her desk.”

  “Oh, I tried to find a way around it. I mean, that wee lassie, McSporran, was telling the truth about the ‘carnival’ knowledge as she called it. So, I thought, English was always after money. He had his wicked way with her. What if she told him she’s left it all to charity instead of him. Sort of a test of his true love and all that. He gives her the heave-ho in his usual charming way and she turns murderous.”

  The wind rose suddenly and moaned round the station. Silas shivered. “I feel that cat’s somewhere near.”

  “I’ll go out and look for the poor thing,” said Hamish. “Come on, Lugs.”

  But Lugs shuffled over to Silas, laid his chin on Silas’s boots, and looked pleadingly at Hamish.

  “Oh, stay where you are, you stupid dog. Could you cook us a fry-up for supper, Silas? There’s venison sausage, eggs, bacon, and haggis.”

  “Will do. Do you want me to report that business about the minister to Blair? Send him down the wrong rabbit hole?”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  * * *

  Blair said he would check the interviews and get back to Silas which he did after ten minutes, calling Silas every sort of fool. The woman had an unbreakable alibi which Silas should have known if he had a brain in his body and on and on went Blair until Silas said firmly that somehow Hamish was sure Maisie Walters was the murderer. After he had rung off, Blair stared at the phone, overcome by a sudden craving for a drink. He had run out of pills and had taken no mind-bending substances. Drugs were dangerous, he told himself. But what harm could just one dram do? He needed to think. Silas was young and naive. He wouldn’t lie. Despite all appearances to the contrary, Macbeth might be onto something.

  He set out for Cnothan. Maisie Walters herself answered the door to him, her face darkening when she saw who it was. Blair gave her an oily smile and said, “I’m only here because it baffles me why Hamish Macbeth should think you are the murderer.”

  “Tell Macbeth I am contacting my lawyer this evening and I am going to sue him.”

  Blair felt alarmed. He could not produce proof because that would mean admitting he had asked Silas to spy on Macbeth. “I havenae any proof he’s actually saying that,” blustered Blair. “Just a rumour.”

  “Then either get proof and come back with it or go away before I report you for police harassment.”

  * * *

  Blair was furious when he left the manse. He drove to Lochdubh and parked on the waterfront. He decided to creep round the back of the station and listen at the kitchen window. He couldn’t bear the idea of a wasted journey. The craving for drink was worse than ever.

  As he tiptoed to the side of the station, he heard a loud hiss and looked down. A large cat with a dead hen in its jaws was staring up at him with a yellow, baleful stare. It dropped the hen and Blair could swear it was ready to leap on him. He turned and ran for his car.

  * * *

  “Did you hear anything?” asked Hamish, putting down his k
nife and fork.

  “No, but I feel something. I think your cat’s about the place.”

  “I searched and called while you were making supper,” said Hamish.

  “What on earth made you think it was your cat? Everyone in the village is saying it wasn’t in the least like Sonsie.”

  “I wanted it to be. And I have a feeling she wanted to be, too. Is that mad?”

  “I suppose it could be,” said Silas cautiously. “What do you think Blair will do?”

  “He may try to get something out of her and fail and that’ll make him mad. If he goes back on the booze, that’s when you’re really in trouble. He’ll maybe persuade Daviot that you’d be better off in Strathbane. Next time you call, you’d better tell him you hate it here.”

  * * *

  A report of a break-in at a shop in Braikie kept them busy the next morning. Silas said he would do the paperwork and Hamish decided to drive to Cnothan, just to question one of the witnesses. Perhaps they might have been lying.

  How he detested Cnothan! A sour village where the inhabitants boasted of “keeping themselves to themselves.” There used to be a Sergeant Macgregor to cope with the place, but he had retired and it had simply been added on to Hamish’s extensive beat. The witness, a George Green, actually lived in what had been Sergeant Macgregor’s bungalow. The front garden was packed with the dreariest bunch of plants Hamish had ever seen in one small garden. He recognised laurel bushes and wellingtonia. The rest he didn’t know but they were flowerless and dusty and depressing. He was just about to walk up the garden path when the sound of a small sob stopped him.

  He unclipped the torch from his belt and shone it into the foliage from which the sound had come.

  The terrified eyes of Fairy McSporran stared up at him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I believe cats to be spirits come to earth.

  —Jules Verne

  Hamish crouched down. “It’s me. Sergeant Macbeth. What’s the matter, lassie?”

  She put her hands over her face and began to rock to and fro. “I’d best get you home,” said Hamish, becoming alarmed.

  “No!” she screamed. “Ma will say I’m telling lies and the minister will put a curse on me. She can be two places at the one time.”

  “Come with me, lassie. I think what you need is a chocolate ice cream.”

  “Wi’ a chocolate flake in it?”

  “Double, if ye want it.”

  One small grubby hand reached out from the bushes and found Hamish’s hand and held on tightly. He lifted her up in his arms and walked down to a café on the main street where he bought her something called a 99, which came with a stick of flaky chocolate thrust into the cone, and asked for another flake. Oh, the magic of chocolate, thought Hamish, watching the delight on the tearstained face. Better than a tranquilliser any day.

  “We’ll talk a wee bit about what scared you. Now, Fairy, I’m sure you believe what you think you saw but folk cannae be two places at once.”

  She looked at him solemnly. “I saw her at the Girl Guides. She needed some string so she says to me to go into the vestry and look in the green cupboard and there might be some on the bottom shelf. Mr. Macbeth, cross ma hert and hope to die but when I opened that door, she’s there, looking at me. I ran like hell and hid.”

  “Listen, Fairy, I believe you, but it is our secret, right? Can you keep quiet for, say, a couple of days and…and I’ll buy you another 99?”

  “Another 99 and I can shut up for a year,” said Fairy.

  “Right. When you’ve finished the next ice cream, I’ll take you near your home and drop you off. Is the church locked during the day?”

  She shook her head. He bought her another ice cream and waited patiently, very patiently, because Fairy, having got over her fears, seemed determined to make it last as long as possible.

  When he had at last got rid of her, he went up to the church, entered the vestry, and opened the green cupboard. There was nothing sinister there, only rusty tools, and boxes of string and tape. Was Fairy nothing more than a fantasist, telling elaborate lies? But she had been very frightened.

  He tried the other cupboards. Only the minister’s robes along with the choir’s surplices. Rather high even for the Church of Scotland, thought Hamish. He was about to leave when he sniffed the air and smelled smoke. He went out and looked at the sky. A thin plume of smoke was coming from the vicarage garden at the back of the manse. He ran round and vaulted over the fence, as the gate was padlocked. A brazier was burning brightly over by the far wall. He ran up to it. There was one piece of cardboard which he jerked out by using a branch. One colour-photographed eye stared up at him. That was it, he thought. Fairy had seen a large cardboard photo of the minister in the cupboard, because he recognised her even from the small piece that was left. His heart began to beat with excitement. Say Maisie left a large cardboard cutout of herself by the window on the night Paul was murdered; that would be what the witnesses saw. But the evidence was almost gone. Fairy would be dismissed as a liar. His phone rang. It was Blair. “You’re to get the hell away from that manse,” he shouted. “Daviot is furious. You’re trespassing without a warrant.”

  “I’m leaving now,” said Hamish mildly. “I saw smoke and went to check, that’s all.”

  “Well, get your scrawny arse back to Lochdubh toot sweet, and tell Silas Dunbar to move back to Strathbane next week. He’s not helping up there.”

  Hamish’s heart sank. He could hear all the sounds of a pub in the background. Blair back on the booze would be even more obstructive and vicious.

  * * *

  He felt depressed as he made his way back to Lochdubh. He would have been even more depressed if he had seen Fairy being dragged along in the direction of the church. But he was soon to find out the result. He had only just entered the station when he was told to report to Strathbane to answer a charge of paedophilia.

  By the time he had untangled the charges against him, he felt exhausted. Fairy, desperate to keep their secret, had agreed that Hamish had taken her for two ice creams and, yes, he had put a hand on her knee. Fortunately for Hamish, the waitress, like the late Paul English, prided herself on her honesty and said roundly that Hamish had never touched the wee lassie. Before he left, she had asked the officer what was up with the wee girl and he had said she was worried about schoolwork. Faced with this, Fairy had hung her head and said it was the truth but that she hadn’t wanted her mother to know she was worried about school. Finally released after signing what seemed like endless statements, Hamish finally returned to Lochdubh to find a distressed Silas, who had received an e-mail summoning him back to his duties in Strathbane. Hamish had forgotten to tell him about Blair’s call. He went to bed, vowing to find some way of keeping young Silas and, more important, to find evidence of those cardboard photos or photo. They must have been used at some time for something. Just before he went to sleep, he remembered that the Currie sisters sometimes went to services in Cnothan. He became determined to question them in the morning.

  * * *

  Silas decided that if he really had to go back to Strathbane then he would resign from the police force, or maybe, just maybe, get a transfer to a pleasant town like Perth. He quailed at the thought of living with his domineering and possessive mother again while at work he suffered the lash of Blair bullying. Hamish told him after a phone call from Jimmy that two top detectives had been sent up from Glasgow to take over running the case and Blair looked as if he was about to have an apoplexy. The phone rang before Hamish left the station. It was Blair demanding to speak to Silas.

  “I am afraid Constable Dunbar is out on a case,” said Hamish.

  “Tell him to drop everything and get down here.”

  “As he is being moved at your request, sir, then you must fill in all the necessary forms in triplicate, giving reasons and…”

  Hamish grinned as Blair slammed down the phone on him. He saw Silas watching him anxiously. “You are not, repeat, not, going back to
Strathbane, laddie, so stop looking like a ghost. I want you to go to Cnothan and start asking round if there were any cardboard cutouts of the minister at any time.”

  After Silas had left, Hamish strolled along the waterfront to the Currie sisters’ cottage. He pinned a smile on his face as Nessie berated him for being lazy and her sister echoed her every word. When she had worn herself out, he started to question her about any big cardboard photographs of the minister. But neither of the spinster twins had seen anything like such a thing.

  Over in Cnothan, Silas was meeting with the same lack of success. He phoned Hamish, who said, “Maybe it was something in her past. Maybe when she was married to yon oilman and afore she became a minister. Come back here and we’ll start ferreting.”

  Their ferreting took them along to the offices of the local newspaper, the Highland Times. Hamish felt almost a pang of loss when he remembered the days when Elspeth had worked for the paper, before she became famous. Maybe he should have proposed to her then. They asked if they could search the photo files. Two thick box files contained photos of Minister Maisie, but nothing of the time before she took holy orders. Hamish’s mind drifted off. Did members of the Church of Scotland take holy orders or was that considered papist, like taking orders from Rome? How little he knew about religion. But he had met many preachers who really should have gone on the stage, as his mother would say, and got it out of their systems. There was Maisie in tights, rehearsing as principal boy in the pantomime Mother Goose. What vanity, thought Hamish. What great fat legs and greasy hair. Odd life when plain women often thought they were Cleopatra and pretty girls thought they were plain. Of course, those thoughts would be damned as sexist these days. Hamish scowled. Women, he thought, were still being treated like some minor, not quite developed ethnic group and often given jobs they were not qualified for to fill some government quota. Women…

  He shook his head as if to shake out the nasty thoughts, foreign to his usually easy-going mind. He felt almost haunted.