by M C Beaton
Hamish thanked her, put down the receiver, then lifted it again and dialled his parents’ home.
His mother answered. “Is Priscilla there?” demanded Hamish, his voice sharp with anxiety.
“Aye, she’s here. But you cannae talk to her, son.”
“Why?”
“The poor lassie’s still fast asleep by the fire. My, Hamish, she used to be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and now she’s nothing but skin and bone. She cannae leave. She’ll need to stay the night. I’ll let her sleep a bit and then give her a good supper and put her to bed.”
“Have you the room?”
“Och, yes, we’ll put a cot bed in the girls’ room. How’s yourself?”
“I’m just fine.”
“Is it a grand place?”
“Well, it’s a health farm, sort of mock-Spanish villa.”
“On Eileencraig! My, my.”
“Dinner,” called Jane, putting her head round the door.
“I’ve got to go, Ma,” said Hamish quickly. “I’d phone tomorrow.”
He said goodbye and sat for a moment looking at the phone. What on earth would the elegant and fastidious Priscilla make of his noisy, easygoing family?
He rose then and went out through the lounge to the dining-room. It was panelled in pine wood. Several small tables had been put together to make a big one and it was covered by a red-and-white-checked cloth and decorated with candles in wine bottles. A stag’s head ornamented one wall, and Hamish noticed to his surprise that it was fake. He hadn’t known that such a thing existed. Jane probably did not approve of bits of real animal being used, hence the fake head and the synthetic skins on the lounge floor.
Dinner was excellent and Hamish could only be glad that he was seated between the Carpenters and therefore protected by their bulk from Heather. Also, to his relief, conversation at dinner was innocuous. Jane was explaining that they would all go for a walk along the shore in the morning and then, after lunch, take a walk inland while there was still some light. Hamish enjoyed the excellent meal washed down with some good claret. He began to feel mellow. It was not going to be such a disaster after all. But he should show some gesture toward earning his keep.
As soon as dinner was over, he asked Jane to show him that bathroom heater.
Jane let him into her bedroom, through a door emblazoned with the legend “Sir Walter Scott.” It was furnished pretty much the same as the one allotted to Hamish, except that there were two bookshelves stuffed with women’s magazines instead of one.
He went into the bathroom and examined the heater carefully and then stood back and looked at the ceiling.
There was a patch of damp and black mould beginning to form on it. He was sure the builder had been right and that the heater had fallen off the wall because of the damp. In fact, probably the whole structure of the health farm needed to be treated for damp, but to tell Jane that at this early date would make him feel more of a fraud than he was and so he murmured non-committally that he would take another look at it on the following day, and that he would probably start his investigations by going to see Mrs. Bannerman.
Jane stood very close beside him. “I see what Priscilla means,” she said. “You are very competent.”
Hamish shied and took a nervous step back.
“How did you meet Priscilla?” he asked.
“It was at a party in London,” replied Jane. “Such a boring party, we decided to leave early and went to a bar for a drink and got talking. We had a few lunches after that.”
“And when did you last see her?”
“About three years ago, and then I heard this summer that her father had gone bust and turned the castle into an hotel.”
Hardly a friendship, thought Hamish. “Shall we join the others?” he said, easing around her and making for the door.
Jane looked a little disappointed but followed him out. “Pity,” she murmured. “I’ve never had a policeman before.” Or rather, that’s what Hamish thought she’d said.
The rest of the guests were back in the television lounge and grouped around the set. It was a talk show. A famous film star told everyone how he had got off the booze, and he was followed by a famous romantic novelist.
Heather’s eyes narrowed. “Just look at that silly woman. It gars me grue to see creatures like that making all that money producing rubbish.”
Sheila flushed and Hamish noticed that she slid the romance she had been holding on her lap down the side of the chair.
“Here, wait a minute,” said Harriet crossly. “I may only write cookery books, but I do know something about romance writers. To be successful you can’t write down, and very few of them make big money.”
Heather sniffed. “Money for old rope, if you ask me. And the historical ones are the worst. I doubt if they even open a history book.”
“Well, it’s the romance that sells it, not the historical content,” said Harriet soothingly. “For example, if I wrote a book about the French Revolution, I would describe the tyranny and horror and how the storming of the Bastille was only to get at the arsenal. There were only seven people freed, you know. Now your true romance writer would see it more through the eyes of Hollywood. Thousands of prisoners would be released while the heroine, dressed in rags, led the liberators. Great stuff. I really sometimes wonder if the less romance writers know, the better. Or, for example, I would describe a shiekh of the desert as a fat little man with glasses and a dish-towel on his head. Your true romance writer would have a hawk-eyed Rudolph Valentine character in Turkish turban and thigh-boots. It’s a harmless escape.”
“Harmless!” Heather snorted. “It’s even got women like poor Sheila here stuffing her mind with rubbish.”
“For heaven’s sake,” said Harriet crossly, “you watch the most awful pap on television, day and night. There was a programme on Channel Four last night about some Hollywood producer who does soft-porn horror films and who was treated by the interviewer as a serious intellectual. Anyone who writes popular literature, on the other hand, is treated like a charlatan, and do you know why, Heather? It’s because the world is full of morons who think they could write a book if only they had the time. You’re just jealous!”
“Yes, if you’re so bloody superior,” said John Wetherby, “why don’t you write a book, Heather?”
Heather looked at them like a baffled bull. Hamish guessed it was the very first time during her visit to the island that she had been under attack.
“Aren’t we all getting cross?” cried Jane. “Switch the goggle box off, John, and we’ll all have a game of Monopoly instead.”
Hamish was then able to see another side to Jane, the good-business⁄hostess side. She flattered Heather by asking her questions about the latest shows in Glasgow as she led them through to the lounge and spread out the Monopoly board on the table. She teased Sheila charmingly on having such a devoted husband and said she ought to write an article and tell everyone her secret. She congratulated Harriet on a beautiful meal and told Diarmuid, Heather’s husband, that he was so good-looking she was going to take some photographs of him to use for the health-farm brochure.
They all settled down in a better humour to a long game of Monopoly and nobody seemed to mind very much when Heather won.
Hamish at last went off to bed. The bed was comfortable and the central heating excellent. He wondered why Jane had seen fit to have extra wall heaters put in all the bathrooms, and then reflected that she was a clever-enough business woman to cosset her guests by seeming to supply them with a rigorous regime of exercise outside while pampering them with warmth and comfort indoors.
He was sure no one was trying to kill her. And yet, he could not shake off a nagging feeling of uneasiness. He put it down, after some thought, to the fact that he disliked Heather intensely and had been shocked by John’s revelations about his marriage. He would avoid them as much as possible. Harriet Shaw, now, was worth spending time with, and on that comfortable thought he drifted off to sleep.
&nb
sp; ≡≡≡
Sheila Carpenter sat in front of the dressing-table in the room called Mary of Argyll which she shared with her husband. She wound rollers in her hair while her husband lay in bed, watching her.
“I could kill her,” said Sheila suddenly.
“Who?”
“Heather, of course.”
“I’ll do it for you, pet. Don’t let her bother you. She’s not wurth it.”
“Petty, stupid snob,” said Sheila with uncharacteristic viciousness.
≡≡≡
“Who is that long drip of a Highlander?” demanded John Wetherby. Jane shrugged. She was putting away the Monopoly pieces in their box. “Just some friend of Priscilla’s.”
“You can’t fool me. For your benefit, your dear friend Heather told me this Macbeth was your latest.”
“It’s not true,” said Jane. “And Heather would not say anything malicious like that.”
“Oh, no? She’s a first-class bitch and I feel like bashing ‘her head in.”.
Jane studied him seriously and then said in a voice of patient reason, “You must stop this irrational jealousy, John. It’s not flattering or even sexually motivated. It is simply based on totally irrational masculine possessiveness. It said in an article I was reading the other day…”
“Pah!” shouted John and stomped off to his room.
≡≡≡
Diarmuid Todd sat at the dressing-table and trimmed his fingernails. His wife, Heather, was reading The Oppression of the Working Classes in a Capitalist Society. She read as far as page 2 and then put the book down. “What do you think of our Jane’s latest?”
Diarmuid paused, and then continued working on his nails with all the single-minded fastidiousness of a cat at its toilet. “Who do you mean?” he asked.
“Why, that Highland chap, Hamish something-or-another.”
Her husband put away the scissors in his leather manicure case and then took out an orangewood stick and began to clean his nails. “I don’t think he’s anything other than a Mend, Heather, and I hope you haven’t been going around saying anything else.”
His usually bland Scottish voice had a slight edge to it. “Maybe not,” said Heather. “Jane’s a very attractive-looking woman but hardly a man-eater. There’s something, well, sexless about her.”
She patted the springy waves of her permanently waved hair with a complacent hand before picking up her book again.
The stick snapped in Diarmuid’s suddenly tensed fingers and he threw his wife a look of pure and unadulterated hatred.
≡≡≡
Harriet Shaw creamed her face vigorously and then slapped at what she feared might become a double chin one of these days and wished she had not come. The Carpenters were sweet, but Heather was too much to take. Thank goodness for that Hamish fellow. He was charming and quite attractive in a way with his fiery-red hair and hazel eyes. Better stick with him till the holiday was over or she would end up killing Heather. She amused herself before falling asleep by thinking out ways to get rid of Heather and then how to dispose of the body, until, with a smile on her lips, she fell fast asleep.
∨ Death of a Snob ∧
3
Though by whim, envy, or resentment led,
They damn those authors whom they never read.
—CHARLES CHURCHILL
To Hamish’s surprise, breakfast, cooked by Jane, turned out to be an excellent meal, although he missed not having any tea or coffee. It consisted of toast and low-cholesterol margarine, fresh grapefruit, muesli, and a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.
The breakfast was marred only by the seeming emotions around him. Jane had appeared wearing pink denim shorts with a bib front over a white-and-pink-checked blouse and walking boots in tan leather. She was shortly followed by Heather, wearing exactly the same outfit.
Heather’s face was flushed and angry and Diarmuid looked sulky. They had just had a row. The normally placid Diarmuid had suddenly snapped that if Heather thought Jane sexless, then why did she try to dress like her? It only made her look like a fright. And certainly Heather did look awful, having rolls and bumps of flesh where Jane had none, and fat white hairy legs, Heather believing that to shave one’s legs was merely pandering to masculine sexism. Jane looked at Heather as she entered and something for a moment glittered in the depths of her eyes and then was gone.
Sheila had carried her romance to the breakfast table and was reading it, occasionally darting nasty little looks at Heather, and her husband also darted angry little looks at Heather, so that the round Carpenters looked more like twins than husband and wife.
John Wetherby was glowering at his breakfast. He was wearing a V-necked pullover over a blue shirt and a tightly knotted tie, grey flannels, and walking shoes, his idea of suitable wear for a hiker.
Jane rose and addressed them at the end of the meal. “This will not do,” she said gaily. “There is a nasty atmosphere and we should all be having a lovely, lovely time.” She lifted a box and put it on the table. “I have here a supply of balloons, thread, and pencil and paper. Now, I suggest we each write down our resentments, blow up our balloons, and carry them outside and watch them all float away!”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Jane,” snapped her ex-husband. “Be your age.”
“Don’t be stuffy,” said Heather. “Sounds like fun. Come on, Sheila, get your head out of that trash.” She gave that laugh copied from Jane. “It’s like watching a rather nice little pig with its head in the trough.”
“Watch your mouth, you rotten bitch,” shouted Ian.
“I know what it is,” cried Jane, holding up her hands. “We need some fresh air to blow the cobwebs away. Forget about the balloons. Where’s your Christmas spirit? Get your coats and off we go.”
They all meekly rose to their feet. “I don’t think I can bear this,” said Harriet to Hamish.
He smiled down at her. “I have to go over to the village this morning, and maybe there’s a bar there…”
“I’ll come with you,” said Harriet. “Don’t tell the others. We’ll just join the end of the crocodile and then veer off.”
Jane set out at the head of the group. Her voice floated back to them. “Let’s sing! All together now. ‘One man went to mow…’”
“Come on,” said Hamish to Harriet as the group straggled along the beach behind Jane.
The air was warmer than the day before, but a howling gale was still blowing. Snatches of Jane’s singing reached the ears of Hamish and Harriet as they made their way inland and onto the road that led to the village; The rising sun was low on the horizon, curlews piped dismally from the heather, and seagulls crouched on the ground, occasionally taking off to battle with the gale.
They tried to talk but at last fell silent, for the shrieking wind meant they had to shout. Harriet was wearing a tweed jacket and matching skirt. Her short brown hair streaked with grey was crisp and curly. She walked with an easy stride by Hamish’s side. Hamish was happy. The silence between them was companionable, tinged with a conspiratorial edge prompted by their escape from the others.
They turned a bend in the road and in front of them stood a very battered old Fiat truck, parked in the middle. They made their way around it and stopped short. A small man was sitting at the side of the road in front of the truck, weeping bitterly.
“Hey,” cried Hamish, crouching down beside the forlorn figure. “What’s your trouble?”
“It iss him,” said the man, raising a tear-stained face and jerking a gnarled thumb in the direction of the truck. “He iss out to kill me.”
Hamish got up, and motioning Harriet to stand well back, he went quickly to the truck. There was no one in the cabin and nothing in the back but barrels of lobster.
He loped back and sat down on the road beside the man and said coaxingly, “Now, then, there’s no one there. Who are you talking about?”
“Him!” said the little man passionately, and again that thumb jerked at the truck. “Can’t you see hi
m, sitting there, watching me?”
The truck-driver was probably only in his forties, but hard weather and a hard life made him appear older. Like most of the islanders, he was small in stature. He had a weather-beaten face. Sparse grey hairs clung to his brown scalp.
Harriet bent down and shouted above the tumult of the wind, “But there is not a soul about except for us.”
“Wait a bit.” Hamish held up his hand. “Do you mean the truck is trying to kill you?”
“Aye, the beast! The beast. Wass I not loading the lobsters and did he not back into me and try for to tip me into the sea?”
“And did you not have the brakes on?” said Hamish cynically. “What is your name?”
“Geordie Mason.”
“Well, listen, Geordie, stop your havering. I am Hamish Macbeth, and this is Harriet Shaw. We’re going into Skulag. I’ll hae a look at your truck and drive it for ye.”
Geordie rubbed his eyes with his sleeve. “Wid ye dae that? Himself will no’ mind. It’s jist me he cannae thole.”
Hamish drew Harriet aside. “It’ll save us a walk,” he said. “I’m sure the wee man is harmless. Probably been at the methylated spirits.”
Hamish climbed into the driving-seat, Geordie sat next to him, and Harriet on the other side. It was an old–fashioned bench seat, and so it could take the three of them comfortably.
Hamish turned the key in the ignition. The engine gave a cough and remained silent. “Ye’ve got to tell himself it’s no’ me that’s driving.” Geordie had recovered from his grief and seemed almost proud of demonstrating the bloody-mindedness of his vehicle.
Harriet stifled a giggle. “All right,” said Hamish amiably. “Does he have a name?”
“He’s an agent o’ the deil, no’ a pet.”
“Why he?” asked Harriet. “I mean boats and planes and things like that are she.”
“I jist ken,” said Geordie, folding his arms and glaring through the windscreen.
“Oh, Fiat truck,” said Hamish Macbeth, “this is your friend speaking. This is not your master, Geordie Mason. We’re going to Skulag, so be a nice truck and get a move on.”
