by M C Beaton
“Silas!” he said suddenly. “Come here and look at our reverend in all the glory of silk tights and high heels. Must be awfy vain. Listen, I’ll bet she had a big photo of herself taken to put outside the church hall when the panto was on. What’s the date? Just a few months ago. Not even near Christmas. Let’s find the article that goes wi’ this.”
He disappeared and came back with a large bound book. “Would you believe it? Nothing on computer. Still bound in volumes like this one. Let’s see. Who the hell is smoking? I don’t think you’re supposed to in here.”
“It’s the editor,” said Silas, looking round the door.
Hamish cursed under his breath. He had given up smoking but the smell of that cigarette had brought back all the old craving.
He opened the book and began to look through the editions. “Nothing,” he finally said. “But if there was a big cardboard photo of her outside where the panto was supposed to be put on or rehearsed, folk would remember it.”
“I’ll go to Cnothan and ask Maisie’s alibi witnesses who said they saw her through the study window the night of Paul’s murder.”
* * *
Silas felt that if in some small way he could break the case then he would be allowed to stay in Lochdubh. He had just arrived in Cnothan when his mobile phone rang. It was Blair. “Has yon loon found out anything?”
“Aye,” said Silas. “We’ve found out the murderer. It’s the woman minister in Cnothan.”
“Havers, laddie. Her alibi is rock-solid.”
“There’s a way around that.” And desperate to show he was better placed in Lochdubh, Silas blurted out about the cardboard photo.
“Stay where you are!” barked Blair. “I’m coming over. Where are you?”
“Nearly at the manse.”
“Stay near it but don’t go in. Get it?”
“Yes, sir,” mumbled Silas.
Silas now felt wretched. Blair would bully the minister who would complain to Daviot and the whole wrath of police headquarters would descend on Hamish Macbeth and it was all his, Silas’s, fault.
He phoned Hamish and told him in faltering tones what he had done. Hamish reflected sadly that Charlie would never have made such a mistake. Silas was so young and, unfortunately, it seemed, easily intimidated.
Hamish decided to drive over to Cnothan to protect Silas. He cursed Silas’s mother under his breath as he drove along, feeling that domineering lady had filleted Silas’s backbone out of him. But when he drove up and around the manse there was no sign of Silas or his car. He banged on the door and harangued Maisie, who said she would complain about police harassment and that she had never seen Silas that morning.
Silas finally answered his phone. He said gloomily he couldn’t take any more and that he was heading for the Tommel Castle Hotel to get drunk.
Hamish was worried that he had so much faith in a bit of burnt cardboard.
* * *
The journey to the hotel had gone a long way to calm Silas. He decided he hated police work. No, that was wrong. He hated Strathbane’s idea of police work. He would hand in his resignation and maybe get a job as a security guard.
He decided to go into the hotel anyway, but for coffee instead of liquor. George Halburton-Smythe saw the uniformed policeman go into the bar. George had just arrived back from Uist. Kind as Charlie and Annie always were to him, he felt like an old gooseberry, lurking around the edges of their happiness, if, he thought sourly, gooseberries could be said to lurk. He followed Silas into the bar. “Let me get you something,” said George.
He was feeling lonely. “That is very kind of you, sir,” said Silas. “I will have a black coffee.”
“I’ll have one, too. Sit down. What brings you here?”
“I need to get my breath,” said Silas miserably. “I’ve decided to leave the police force.”
“Now, why is that? My friend Charles Carter wanted out as well.”
“They want me to go back to Strathbane and I love it here. When I go back, I will be bullied by Mr. Blair.”
George thought quickly. It had been handy when Charlie had been in the apartment downstairs to have a policeman on the premises and great to have someone to talk to in the evenings. George would never quite get rid of snobbery. But here was Silas, young, clean, and suitably deferential.
“Are you really sure you want to leave the force?” asked George. “Mr. Daviot is by way of being a friend of mine and I could arrange things for you.”
“No,” said Silas. “I’ve made up my mind.”
“Well, here’s what I think. You could get a job with me as security and take over Charlie’s apartment. Good pay. Mind you, I’d expect you to patrol outside as well.”
So must a tortured animal feel when it sees the trap open, thought Silas romantically.
* * *
When Hamish arrived, he was told by the manager that Silas and George were both down in Charlie’s old apartment. Hamish hesitated at the top of the stairs, standing on one leg like a heron, a dazed look on his face.
“What’s the matter?” asked the manager, Mr. Johnson.
“Say you wanted folk to think you were at work in the office when you were in fact at a brothel in Inverness, how would you cover your tracks?”
“Cut that oot, Hamish! I wouldnae be seen deid in a brothel,” exclaimed the manager, his usually more refined vowels slipping.
“Oh, help me out here! Think.”
“The classic thing,” said the manager, “is what kids do. They make a dummy and put it in the bed so that if Ma looks in she’ll think they’re asleep.”
“But you want folk to see you awake!”
“Listen. I pay taxes so you can use your brain. Not mine. You take said dummy and prop it up near the window with a dim light behind it. You take a selfie photo, profile, on the computer and print it off, glue it onto a melon or something, and stick a wig or cap on top. Something like that.”
Hamish darted down the stairs to hear Silas say, “It’s a right bonnie apartment, sir, and it will be a privilege to work for you.”
They both turned round and saw Hamish. Silas turned red with embarrassment. “Hamish, I…”
“Never mind,” said Hamish. “Sit down until I tell you this theory.”
They both listened carefully. Then Silas said cautiously, “Have you considered that it might have nothing at all to do with the minister?”
“I’ve thought and thought,” said Hamish. “Paul English could be vicious. He pressures her into writing a will. There’s a thing! Strathbane got round every lawyer for miles and she never made a will. Anyway, she gets suspicious that all he wants is her money, and she’s very vain. So to test his love she tells him she’s leaving it to some animal charity. So he blows his top and tells her exactly what he thinks of her and I bet it was something awful. But before he leaves the pub, even though he’s handcuffed, he’s got her number on speed dial. Presses the button and begs. Say he says he’ll meet her in the garden at Mrs. Mackenzie’s. Alison sees her and Mrs. Mackenzie might have heard or seen something. Alison is flattered and seduced by English. I cannae understand it. He was an ugly bastard. But cupidity equals stupidity. Oh, well, maybe he promised to take her to Paris on honeymoon after they were married.”
“If she’s guilty,” said Silas, “what do you think she’ll do now?”
“Head for the station in Lochdubh to threaten me,” said Hamish. “Something like that.”
“I am leaving the force and going to work as the hotel security,” said Silas.
“That’s grand,” said Hamish.
“Have you considered that it might be very simple,” said Silas. “I mean, the forestry workers could have come back and tipped him into the bog after having stabbed him on the neck.”
“The forestry workers are the type to lash out when angry but they would never nearly kill Larry or murder poor Alison. I’ll leave you here, Silas, in case Blair’s on the warpath.”
Hamish had to confess that he felt rel
ieved at Silas’s decision. Silas was not Charlie. For despite his dislike for police work Charlie had been a very good policeman indeed, whereas Silas, although hardworking and good-natured, was not the sort to stand up to bullies. He drove up to the station and parked outside. Then he felt it—menace in the very air. Behind him Lugs let out a low whimper.
“What’s the matter, boy?” whispered Hamish. “What’s scared you?”
Lugs was a mixture of breeds, but somewhere in him must have been a bit of gun dog because he raised one paw and pointed with his nose in the direction of the henhouse.
Hamish walked over to the hen run outside the birds’ shed and looked down on a massacre. Blood and feathers everywhere. Hens with their throats ripped out and left to die. He had kept eleven laying hens and one cock. He counted eleven bodies.
“I’ll murder that fox,” he muttered.
“Wasnae the fox,” said a voice behind him, making him jump. Hamish swung round.
Archie Maclean stood there. “Was that cat o’ yours,” he said.
“Why didn’t you stop her?” asked Hamish.
“If I’d even tried, I’d hae ended up like yon birds. Sonsie, be damned. That cat is evil. You’re going to have to shoot it.”
“I cannae dae that.”
“Then phone that lot ower in Ardnamurchan and say a wild cat’s been seen and get them to come and hunt for it. It’s round the village. We’re all locking our doors and windows tonight.”
Hamish decided to leave clearing up the mess until the morning. How on earth had he believed so fiercely that this feral cat was Sonsie? It was as if he had been bewitched. Elspeth Grant used to laugh at him and say he was married to Sonsie.
Once indoors, he phoned Peter, the vet, and said he would like to borrow a couple of tranquilliser guns in the morning. When Silas arrived, he told him what had happened. Although Silas cringed at the thought of the cat, he felt obliged to help Hamish. Hamish suggested that Silas also go to Dr. Brodie and claim to have had a nervous breakdown which necessitated him leaving the force immediately; otherwise they would keep him down in Strathbane for weeks, signing form after form.
“And after we’ve dealt with that, let’s see if we can get a search warrant for the manse.”
“You’ll never get one, sir!” exclaimed Silas.
“Oh, yes, I bloody well will! I know that bitch is hiding something or someone or she’s the murderer. What will get you a house search? That wonderful word, paedophilia. Suggest there’s been kiddy fiddling at the manse, anonymous calls, that sort of thing, and social services will be there like a shot. And we’ll be at their heels.”
* * *
The next morning was what Hamish always thought of as a silver day. Cobwebs decorated with silver pearls of moisture hung from the fences. White mist lay in long bands over the surface of the steel-grey loch. The air was very still, and sounds from far away came to Hamish’s ears as they collected the guns and started the hunt. They tracked the cat up the back and over the fields to the peat stacks, stopping to examine spots of blood and bits of feather and hen skin. The last trace was one sad bloodstained beak and then there was nothing, not even a paw print, although the peat was damp.
The last thing Silas wanted was to come across that cat from hell. He was relieved when Hamish said they should leave it and go back and see if they could stir Maisie, the minister, up.
Hamish phoned Jimmy but Jimmy said Blair was over at the manse, and Maisie Walter had phoned Daviot, her local MP, the newspapers, and finally the prime minister. Blair, called back to the station and on the carpet, blamed Silas, but Daviot had heard that Silas had suffered a nervous breakdown, due, the colonel had said, to Blair’s bullying. Blair promised to leave the minister alone. That was when Hamish threw his hand grenade of suspected paedophilia into the mix. When he replaced the phone, he grinned at Silas and said, “Stand by for orders. They’ll pussyfoot around a murder but they’re great at getting children seized from their parents.”
It was unfortunate for Maisie, who didn’t have children anyway, that in these days of political correctness, you dare not even pat a child on the head. Mothers remembered uneasily how the minister had hugged little Johnny when he had fallen in a game of rounders, or how little Jane had been carried by the minister into the vestry to get her grazed knee treated but the door had been shut in her mother’s face, and what went on in there. Hey?
But in an interview that evening on television, Maisie made a powerful speech in her defence and then burst into tears. Phone calls of support came from all over. Finally, the blame fell on Silas. It was explained that a young policeman suffering from a nervous breakdown had made a terrible mistake. Compensation would be paid along with full apologies.
“This is terrible,” Silas said later to Hamish. “With all that on my record, if I don’t like it at the hotel, or they don’t like me, I’ll never get another job.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll wipe it off your record.”
“How?”
“I have my methods, Watson. Don’t ask. The vet wants the guns back.”
Silas reluctantly handed his over. He had planned to sleep with it beside the bed.
Lugs slept beside Silas. It was almost as if the dog feared that if he went back to sleeping with Hamish, then the cat might find him.
Before Hamish fell asleep, he had a phone call from Charlie and told him about the massacre of the hens. “I’ll come over tomorrow with my gun,” said Charlie, “and blast that bugger off the face o’ the earth.”
“No, I’ll deal with it,” said Hamish.
“What the hell made you think thon beastie was Sonsie?” asked Charlie.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I do,” said Charlie. “There are things out on those moors and mountains that belong in hell, that’s what.”
“Aw, come off it. That’s superstitious rubbish.”
“Oh, yeah? So how come you got tricked into thinking that was your cat?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” shouted Hamish. “Sorry. I’ll call you later.”
* * *
The next day dawned heavy and humid. The midges, those little Scottish mosquitoes, were out in force, and Patel’s ran out of repellent.
Hamish returned after searching for the cat and put his gun back in the gun cabinet. Silas was sitting on the sofa with Lugs on his knee, watching television. He had a sudden feeling of malicious hatred for Silas, him with those pale-green eyes and stupid wee face and…
“What’s up?” asked Silas. “You look as if you want to kill me!”
“Must be indigestion,” said Hamish. “I think there’s a storm coming. Thunder is in the air.” But he felt as if something evil was haunting him. The cat? Rubbish. It was just a cat.
“I thought maybe you’d like a meal at the Italian’s,” said Silas. “My treat. Big plates o’ pasta and a good night’s sleep are what we need.”
“Thanks,” said Hamish, giving a massive shrug as if to shrug his previous awful thought away.
* * *
Silas was unused to drinking much and Hamish hardly ever got drunk, but that evening they had a bottle of wine each and ended the meal with several goblets of brandy. Silas suddenly fell asleep. Hamish thought of Maisie Walters, smug in her ministry, smug because he dare not approach her again.
He did not realise how drunk he was. He only knew the thought of Maisie getting away with murder was eating into him. Then he thought of a plan. He would smoke her out. It all seemed so logical. He called the waiter, Willie Lamont, to bring over the wheelchair they kept in the restaurant, and together they got Silas into it. Promising to pay the bill later, Hamish wheeled Silas back to the station and dumped him on the sofa. He unlocked the gun cabinet and took out a spare untraceable phone he kept for emergencies. Just in case the call he was about to make could be traced from any of the phone towers. He got into the police Land Rover, drove to Strathbane, and parked up the road near Blair’s apartment. He dialled the manse and got
a sleepy and cross Maisie Walters on the phone. He switched on a machine he had once bought that disguised his voice and said, “Hamish Macbeth has just got hard evidence against you, you murdering bitch.”
It was only when he rang off that he realised how very drunk he was. He drove carefully to police headquarters, parked, and fell asleep, not waking until five hours later. He drove carefully back to Lochdubh. Silas was still asleep.
Hamish groaned when he remembered that phone call. All he had done was prompt her, if she was guilty, into making sure there wasn’t going to be even one little thread of evidence.
* * *
In the morning he told Silas to get ready because it was time they patrolled the villages of the west coast. All Hamish wanted to do was get clear of the station. He thought he must have run mad. Silas was looking thoroughly hung over.
As they took the coast road through Braikie, Hamish could see great heavy purple clouds massing up over the Atlantic on the west and huge glassy waves curled and smashed on the beach.
“The sea eats away more land each year,” said Hamish. “The waves are getting bigger. I always feel the sea is hungry to take back the land it lost.”
“Maybe if Scotland votes for independence, Sutherland might opt to join Denmark. It used to belong to the Vikings, after all.”
“It’s like a nightmare.”
“Not as bad as that surely,” said Silas. “Nice bacon.”
“Not that. What I did last night.”
“You mean the pair of us getting drunk?”
“Worse. I phoned up Maisie Walters and told her that Hamish Macbeth had evidence to put her in prison, something like that.”
“She’ll report the call and it’ll be traced.”
“I used a throwaway phone and phoned from Strathbane. You see, I thought that if she’s innocent, she’ll go straight to police headquarters and complain. If she’s guilty, she might come after me. What really bothers me is that I’ve been building up a case against the woman when there are so many other suspects. And all built on a wee bit o’ cardboard and a posh TV. You know, sometimes I’m in the same situation as one of the first coppers or detectives: only my wits to help me. They didn’t even have fingerprints. I phone to ask about forensic evidence and I am told this or that person is in charge of the case and do I have their permission.”
