Death of a Nag hm-11

by M C Beaton

  Then she remembered seeing an Italian restaurant as she had driven along the waterfront. She made her way there. It was quite full but a slim man with neat features showed her to a corner table and then spent an inordinate time washing and scrubbing the checked plastic tablecloth before handing her a menu. She ordered lasagna and a green salad and a glass of wine. To her surprise, the waiter stared down at her accusingly. “You’ll just be having the one glass of wine, I hope.”

  “I’ll drink a whole bottle if I feel like it,” retorted Maggie.

  “My name is Willie Lament.”

  “So?” Another inbred local, thought Maggie.

  “I was in the force myself afore I entered the restaurant trade,” said Willie severely, “and there is one thing I cannae stand and that’s a policeman who drinks, and a policewoman is even worse.”

  Maggie bridled. “One glass of wine is hardly over the limit. Now can you forget you ever were a policeman? Because I am hungry. Hop to it.”

  Willie gave a last polish to the table and left. When Maggie’s meal arrived, it was served not by Willie but a stunning-looking woman who could have doubled for Gina Lollobrigida in her hey-day. “My husband has been telling me that you are with the force,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Maggie curtly. Lucia, Willie’s Italian wife, leaned a curved hip against the table. “I am pregnant,” she said.

  Maggie blinked. “Congratulations.”

  “I know it will be a boy,” said Lucia dreamily, “and we will name it Hamish.”

  “After Macbeth, I suppose?”

  “Yes, it is a nice name…Hamish. So sad about his poor dog.”

  “Very sad,” agreed Maggie, longing to be left in peace to eat. She raised the glass of wine to her lips and lowered it when Lucia said severely, “Willie tells me you drink a lot.”

  Maggie put the glass down with a firm little click. “Look here, I ordered one glass of wine. One! I am also very hungry. Do you mind leaving me alone to enjoy my meal?”

  Lucia looked at her sadly. “Poor Hamish,” she said. “He never finds the right one. Me, I do not think that Priscilla was right for him, but she is kind, and you are not.” Lucia had a soft voice, but none the less it carried around the restaurant. The locals listened avidly. Lucia swayed off and Maggie bent her flaming face over her food. She ate and drank very quickly, calculated the price of the meal, left the money on the table and walked out, glad to escape from the hard stares of the other diners.

  When she returned to the police station, she could hear the murmur of Hamish’s voice from the office. She tried the handle of the door and found it was locked. Baffled, she retreated to the kitchen.

  After some time Hamish emerged from the office. “I thought I was to help you with this case,” said Maggie. “Did you lock the door of your office so that I would not hear what you were doing?”

  “Och, no,” said Hamish easily. “I do it in case some of the locals chust walk in, which they have a habit of doing.”

  “Have you found out anything?” asked Maggie.

  “I’ve put in a few calls,” said Hamish. “Now all I have to do is wait for the replies. There is one thing I did not ask Dermott.”

  “Which is?”

  “He told me that he did not know the boarding-house was under new management. There’s something verra wrong there. I spoke to the surviving Miss Blane, one of the two that used to own the place. Now she told me that Dermott was well aware they were selling the place. That Dermott had had such an unpleasant experience with Harris the year before, and the Misses Blane had given him a lecture on ‘living in sin’ with June. So why come back at all? Unless it was because he knew the boarding-house was under new management and it was cheap and that he did not expect to see Harris again. But what if he knew Harris was going to be there? I wonder if Dermott and Harris met at any time in the intervening year. They’re both commercial travellers. There’s another thing I’ve been wondering about. Tell me about Fred Allsopp.”

  “The barman?”

  “Aye, him. Harris was in the pub the day he was killed and getting drunk. Did he meet anyone, quarrel with anyone?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Fred said Harris was drinking whisky, quite a lot of whisky. He tried to get into conversation with some of the locals but they avoided him.”

  Hamish shrugged impatiently. “I have a feeling so many of the suspects are lying and probably for no reason at all. I haff found when the police are around that folks will lie almost automatically. Then there’s something else. I wonder if Heather really saw Doris where she said she did, or if someone put her up to it, but that someone would be her mother or father, and why should they want to protect Doris?”

  “Unless Dermott did it and didn’t want Doris to be blamed,” said Maggie.

  “The day I meet a kind and thoughtful murderer, I’ll eat my hat,” said Hamish. “Have you eaten?”

  “I went to that Italian restaurant and got served by a cheeky sod called Willie Lament who lectured me on the evils of drink.”

  “Aye, that’s Willie. He gets bossier and bossier and the portions are getting a bit small, but there’s nowhere else to eat for miles unless it’s the Tommel Castle Hotel, and that’s pricey.”

  “Does Willie own the place?”

  “No, it’s owned by a relative of Lucia’s. He’s been away in Italy. He’ll be back soon, which means the food will be back to normal. I might be here until tomorrow. You’d best find a place to stay. Mrs Wellington would put you up.”

  “I’m staying at a Mrs Maclean’s.”

  Hamish’s eyes glinted with amusement. “It’s hygienic, I’ll say that for it.”

  The phone shrilled from the office and he went to answer it. It was from his relative in the Cotswolds. He said that he had checked on the Harrises in Evesham and had found pretty much what Hamish had expected – Doris was well liked and respected by the neighbours and Bob Harris had been detested by all. “But,” added the soft Highland voice on the end of the line, “a Mrs Innes who lives next door and who is friendly wi’ Doris, well, herself said that Doris did not want to go back to Skag, she hadn’t enjoyed it; but she said as how her man was up tae something.”

  “Meaning Harris was up to something?” asked Hamish.

  “Aye, chust so. This Doris had tried tae make a stand and say as how she wouldnae go back and Harris shouted at her and said he had his reasons.”

  “Oho! Anything else?”

  “That iss it so far. I’ll keep in touch.”

  Hamish thanked him and rang off.

  As soon as he returned to the kitchen, Maggie asked him sharply who had been on the phone. Hamish felt a stab of irritation. This was a Watson he did not want.

  Still, what was the harm in her knowing, apart from the fact that he did not like her very much.

  “That was a contact in Evesham,” he said. He told her what he had found out.

  “This is interesting,” said Maggie. “It looks as if Harris might have found out the Bretts were going and meant to be there to torment them.”

  “If this was a detective story,” said Hamish gloomily, “the least likely person would be the murderer, either Miss Gunnery or Andrew Biggar. But in real life it’s always the obvious, and the obvious is either Doris or Dermott. Doris must have hated her husband, years of abuse building up in her, and Dermott admits he was terrified of his wife finding out. Ah, well, I’ll need to wait in for any more calls. Why don’t you take a walk around the village?”

  “I am here on duty,” said Maggie, “and I have seen all of this village that I want to see.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Hamish. He went back into the office and firmly closed the door.

  Maggie stifled a yawn of boredom.

  The phone in the office rang again. She half got to her feet and then sat down angrily again. It was Hamish’s job to tell her what he had found out.

  Hamish picked up the phone and heard the cheery voice of Mr Johnson, the manager of the Tommel Castle Hote
l. “I heard you were back,” said Mr Johnson. “How’s things?”

  “I’m working on this murder over at Skag,” said Hamish, “but I’m here so that I can use my own phone. Heard from Priscilla?”

  “Not for some time. She’s still down south. At first she phoned almost every day, but, och, Hamish, there’s nothing for her to worry about. Between you and me, it’s easier to run the place without herself around. She worries so damn much. Coming up for a visit?”

  “I can’t. I’m waiting for people to return calls and I’ve got a WPC wi’ me, checking on everything I do.”

  “Bring her up for dinner tonight. I’ll give you both a meal on the house. The colonel and missis are away, so I’ve got the run o’ the place to myself. All the Halburton-Smythes are a pain in the neck, if you ask me.”

  “Priscilla’s all right,” said Hamish defensively.

  “Oh, aye, but I sometimes think that lassie makes work. See you the night?”

  “I’ll bring my minder with me,” said Hamish. “Can’t verra well leave her behind.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “So-so.”

  “Give you a bit o’ light relief.”

  “Not this one. She’s staying at Archie’s.”

  “My, my. She’ll be scrubbed to death. Come around eight if you’re free.”

  Hamish was reluctant to return to Maggie. He had letters to write to various far-flung relatives and so he settled down to the task.

  The day wore on. The phone stayed silent. Then, about four in the afternoon, it shrilled into life again. It was the stranger, Harry Dixon, from Essex.

  “Alice Brett works as a legal secretary. I had to follow her up to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I’m billing you for the petrol. Before I went, I talked to the neighbours. Listen to this. A week before the murder, she got a letter and she told her friend and neighbour, Mrs Dibb, that she was going to Scotland because her husband had been cheating on her. I saw her in her office. She said Mrs Dibb was talking rubbish and that she received no letter and knew nothing about it until she saw Dermott’s name in the papers. Went back to Mrs Dibb, who must have had a phone call from our Alice in the intervening time, for she shrieked at me that she had said nothing about any letter and slammed the door in my face.”

  “Good work,” said Hamish. “I’ll get the police on to her.”

  “I thought you were the police.”

  “I am, I meant the southern police,” said Hamish, feeling caught out because he sometimes thought of the police as them, as if he himself were on the other side of the law.

  Having a shrewd idea that if he told Maggie she might phone Deacon and claim the result as her own, he phoned Deacon himself and related what he had found out.

  “I should be pleased wi’ you,” said Deacon sourly, “but all this means is yet another suspect. Anyway, you’re doing fine. We’ll get after Alice Brett.”

  “This should work both ways,” said Hamish, “Phone me with anything you’ve got on Alice Brett. And I’ll be getting a petrol bill from my contact in Essex. I’ll pass it on to you.”

  “Right. Can I hae a word wi’ Maggie?”

  Hamish fetched her. In retaliation to Hamish’s behaviour, Maggie shut the door of the office on him.

  She was annoyed to find out that there was nothing new she could tell Deacon, Hamish having told him more than she knew. “Can’t see much point in me being in this dead-alive place,” said Maggie.

  “You just help Macbeth,” said Deacon sharply. “That’s what you’re there for.”

  The phone rang almost as soon as she had put it down. She picked it up quickly. “Hamish?” demanded a voice. Maggie was just beginning to say, “This is WPC Donald. I will take any messages for PC Macbeth – ”, when Hamish strode in and snatched the phone from her. “Hello, Rory,” she heard him say. Maggie sat down in a chair in the office, determined to hear this call. What Rory was actually reporting was that he had found nothing on the files about any of the suspects, but all Maggie could hear from her end was Hamish’s grunts of disappointment. Hamish replaced the receiver and said to Maggie, “What about a cup of coffee?”

  “You’re as bad as the rest of them,” said Maggie, slamming out.

  The phone rang again. It was the editor of the newspaper in Worcester. He said he had found a few cuttings on Andrew Biggar; he had judged a dog show last year, ridden in one of the local point-to-points, lived with his mother in a large house outside Worcester on the Wyre Piddle road; nothing else.

  Hamish thanked him, rang off and stared in frustration at the phone.

  He went back into the kitchen. Maggie was looking depressed. “Forget the coffee,” he said abruptly. “We’ll go and call on Angela, the doctor’s wife, instead. Get you out a bit. And I’m taking you for dinner to the Tommel Castle Hotel tonight.”

  Her face lit up. “Oh, Hamish, how kind! That will cost you a lot.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said grandly, having no intention of telling her that the meal was to be free.

  Feeling suddenly pleased with him, Maggie followed him out and they walked towards the doctor’s house, leaning against the screaming wind. Waves curled and smashed down on the pebbles of the beach. A plastic dustbin rolled crazily past them. Children ran before the wind on the beach, screaming like seagulls. Hamish and Maggie walked round the side of the doctor’s house and Hamish knocked at the kitchen door.

  Angela answered it and invited them in. Maggie looked curiously around the kitchen. Books everywhere: on the kitchen table, on the chairs and on the floor. Two cats promenaded lazily across the books on the table and two dogs snored under it.

  “Clear a space for yourselves, Hamish,” said Angela. “You know the drill in this house.”

  While she prepared a jug of coffee, Angela said over one thin shoulder, “So how’s the case going, Hamish, and why here and not in Skag?”

  “I wanted the use of my own office,” said Hamish. “How’s life in the village?”

  “Much the same. No dramas. Jessie Currie has gone back to being an ordinary lady. Whatever Angus told her seemed to do the trick, although she looked quite sad for a few days. There’s a cake sale up at the church hall tomorrow and I tried my best, but my cakes never rise. We’ve had various visitors looking at the Lochdubh Hotel.” She turned round and said to Maggie, “It’s been up for sale for some time. But they always go away again. There was even a consortium of Japanese business men, but the minute they saw the hills and mountains and found there was no way of attaching a golf course to it, they left again. Oh, yes, there was a drama last week. Didn’t you hear about it at the manse?” Hamish shook his head. “There were plans to make it into a sort of approved school for young offenders. I think everyone in the village wrote to their MP to protest.”

  “It is a fine building and right on the harbour,” said Hamish. “You would think someone would want it.”

  “If the Tommel Castle Hotel had not come into being, then someone might have bought it, but no one wants to start up in an area where there’s such a powerful rival.”

  “Any sign of the colonel turning it back into his family home?” asked Hamish. “He must be as rich as anything now.”

  “He got such a fright when he went broke last time,” said Angela, setting a jug of coffee on top of a pile of books on the table. “He won’t contemplate it. Johnson’s a good manager.” She poured two mugs of coffee. “Heard from Priscilla?” asked Angela.

  “No,” said Hamish curtly, his face set.

  “Oh, well,” said Angela quickly, “tell me about this case.”

  Maggie listened carefully as Hamish succinctly outlined the facts of the murder case and described the suspects.

  Angela sat down with them as Hamish talked. “Well,” she said when he had finished, “you’ll probably find it’s this Dermott Brett.”

  Hamish thought of Dermott and June and the children. “I don’t want it to be,” he commented. “What about Dermott’s wife, Alice?”

 
; Angela frowned and pushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “I’d like to know a bit more about her,” she said. “I mean, a legal secretary doesn’t actually sound like the hysterical type, but this Dermott obviously loves his June and yet was frightened to ask for a divorce in case his wife topped herself.”

  “I wish I could be in about five places at once,” said Hamish. “This business of Andrew Biggar and Doris bothers me. Evesham and Worcester are not that far apart. Do you believe in love at first sight, Maggie?”

  Maggie, having never been in love, shook her head.

  “And yet I sometimes think there was something between them afore they met up. Andrew Biggar lives in a big house outside Worcester, he apparently leads the life of a gentleman, and yet he comes to a low-class boarding-house in an inferior Scottish resort for a holiday. Damn. I’d like to get down there and question people.”

  “Or it could be Miss Gunnery,” said Angela. Hamish looked at her in surprise. “Why?”

  “By saying she had slept with you, she gave herself a cast-iron alibi and she does not sound like a stupid woman.”

  “But there’s nothing about her to suggest the murderess,” said Hamish, exasperated. “A blameless schoolteacher who appears to have led a blameless life.”

  Angela sighed. “None of us has led a blameless life, Hamish. We all have some sort of skeleton in the closet. But then you might find out it’s this Cheryl and Tracey; have you thought of that?”

  “I haven’t really considered them. Their nasty young lives are so well documented, what with prison records and probation records.”

  “But,” said Angela eagerly, “that’s just it. You’ve been concentrating on a lot of respectable people trying to find a murderer. But here you have two young girls with criminal records and one of them has been found guilty of violence. You say they were overheard saying they would like to kill someone for kicks. It might be as simple as that. You are looking for someone with the sort of character that would kill. Cheryl and Tracey fit the bill.”