Hamish Macbeth 18 (2002) - Death of a Celebrity

by M C Beaton

  Carson read it and then said, “Is Detective Anderson still in the building?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then get him up here.”

  When Jimmy entered, Carson said, “I have just had a report from Macbeth. Someone called Sean Fitzpatrick who lives on the road between Lochdubh and Glenanstey saw a green BMW at nine-thirty in the morning. Read it.”

  Jimmy read the report and let out a soundless whistle.

  “What I want to know is why it was left to Macbeth to find this out,” said Carson.

  “It’s his beat, sir.”

  “Ordinarily, yes. But I’ve had officers and detectives going from door to door and yet they’ve missed this. Tomorrow, make sure they all go over the area again.”

  “Macbeth has a way of finding out bits that others miss,” said Jimmy.

  “He is only a village constable, not Sherlock Holmes. I want no more lapses like this.”

  “Do you want Macbeth to go round the village again as well?”

  “No, he’s got that list to follow up. Leave him.”

  FIVE

  Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!

  O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!

  —Gerald Manley Hopkins

  Next morning, Hamish reluctantly made his way to the bank manager’s house at a time when he knew he would be at work in the bank.

  Mrs. McClellan answered the door. “I don’t need to ask you why you’ve come,” she said wearily. “It’s a nightmare.”

  “So the television company did contact you?”

  “Yes, some girl called Amy Cornwall. I’m haunted by this, Hamish. Do you remember when that awful dustman was blackmailing me over this? It never came out then and I thought it was all over. But this girl had got hold of that old newspaper cutting that said I had been charged with shoplifting. Remember I told you that we’d moved here because my husband felt the scandal deeply? I refused an interview and she said that they would talk about it just the same and that I should put my side of the story. I still refused. Now Crystal’s dead. Has she been murdered?”

  “We believe so.”

  “And that blackmailing dustman was murdered. It’s a nightmare all over again. Will this get in the newspapers?”

  “Unless you killed her, no. My bosses will have the cutting about you from the newspaper so I can’t keep it quiet from them but they’ll have no reason to tell anyone. I must ask you what you were doing on Monday from early morning up till three o’clock.”

  “I worked in the garden all morning. Then I got lunch ready for my husband. Oh, dear, if you ask him to confirm this, he’ll wonder why.”

  “I’ll just tell him we’re asking everyone in the village for their movements and that’s pretty much the case. With any luck, you won’t need to say anything. You’re not the only one.”

  Hamish next drove to Braikie and parked outside Mrs. Harrison’s shop. The reason her dingy shop still kept in business was because she let those on social security benefits run up a bill until their next government payment. Hamish walked in. The shop was empty except for Mrs. Harrison and an old-age pensioner who was paying for a meagre supply of bashed tins. Hamish waited until the customer had left and then asked, “Did Strathbane Television contact you about that old food-poisoning case?”

  “That they did,” she said furiously, “and I chust told them that if they dared to show their faces here again, it would be the worse for them.”

  “What could you do?”

  “My two sons would be here to protect me. Persecuting an old widow woman like me. The case was years ago. They said it was my mutton pies. Havers! But I haven’t sold a mutton pie since.”

  “I must ask you what you were doing on Monday morning and early Monday afternoon.”

  “You know what folks are saying?” she demanded, her face twisted with spite. “They’re saying that chust because thon Priscilla got engaged to someone else, you’re taking it out on everybody.”

  “Chust answer the question…you horrible auld crone.” Hamish had added the last part sotto voce, but she heard it.

  “I’m not going to answer any of your questions.”

  “Then I must ask you to accompany me to the police station.”

  They glared at each other, and then Mrs. Harrison began to sob. Hamish stood helplessly wondering what to do until he saw those eyes behind the tears watching him sharply, as if to gauge his reaction.

  So he waited, unmoved and apparently immovable, until she took out a grubby paper tissue and wiped her eyes.

  “Ochone, ochone,” she said. “What’s a frail old woman to do?”

  “Answer my question. Where were you last Monday?”

  “I was here.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “Ask about. Folks’ll tell you, I’m always open on a Monday.”

  “Thank you. That will be all for now.”

  Hamish left the shop. He walked up and down the street, questioning various people, until one woman said, “Yes, she was open on Monday as usual. Except for around ten-thirty in the morning. I needed some milk, but she had a sign on the door. Back Soon, it said.”

  Hamish returned to the shop. Questioned again, Mrs. Harrison said she had merely gone home to get her cigarettes. Hamish mutely stared at the packets of cigarettes behind her and Mrs. Harrison countered shrilly by saying that she did not normally smoke but the fuss about the television show had upset her nerves and she didn’t want to start a new packet. Hamish knew her to be mean and judged this seemingly improbable explanation to be true.

  He warned her again that he would be back. Now for Barry McSween.

  Barry McSween was not at home and his wife, red-eyed with recent weeping, volunteered that he was probably down in the pub in Lochdubh. Hamish found him there, sitting at a corner table, moodily drinking whisky.

  He sat down opposite and Barry looked at him dully. “Folks are saying I killed that woman,” he said. “But I didnae. I wanted to. She brought shame on me.”

  “Don’t let it get to you,” said Hamish. “She brought shame to a good few people. In a few weeks’ time, it’ll all have blown over and they’ll have something else to talk about. Now where were you on Monday?”

  “That’s easy. Drinking.”

  “Where? Here?”

  “No, I was upset. I didn’t want to see any of the locals. I went to the bar at the Tommel Castle Hotel. I drank there until about two, when Mr. Johnston said I’d better go home and asked for my car keys.” Mr. Johnston was the manager. “I had to walk home. I went straight to bed. Jeannie’ll tell you.” Jeannie was his wife. “I didn’t wake until early evening, and I walked back to the hotel to pick up my car. That’s when I heard about the death. And I was glad. I’m sorry she committed suicide.”

  “It hasn’t been in the papers yet, Barry, but we think it was murder.”

  McSween’s normally ruddy face turned a muddy colour. “That cannae be true. Folks say she was found in her car and a pipe had been stuck in the exhaust and into the window of the car.”

  Pipe, thought Hamish. I wonder where that length of pipe came from. I wonder if they’ve traced it.

  Aloud he said, “I think that puts you in the clear, but I’ll need to check your story.” He pointed to the whisky glass. “How many of those have you had?”

  “This is the second.”

  “Make it the last. I don’t want to add to your troubles by charging you with driving over the limit.”

  Hamish made his way reluctantly to the hotel, which, since he had learned of Priscilla’s engagement, he had been hoping to avoid. He wondered, not for the first time, why memories of Priscilla should still hurt. He finally decided that once you had been in love, it was like contracting an infection and a bit of the disease would always linger.

  Mr. Johnston gave him a warm welcome and led him into the hotel office. “Coffee, Hamish?”

  Hamish nodded. The manager poured him a mug and set it in front of him. “What brings you?
The murder?”

  “Aye, I’ve got to check Barry McSween’s story. He says on Monday he was up here drinking.”

  “That’s right. The barman warned me he was getting drunk and I took his car keys away from him.”

  “Did he make a fuss?”

  “No, staggered out, quiet as a lamb.”

  “I’m glad,” said Hamish. “I don’t like Barry, but, man, she did make a fool of him.”

  “If you ask me, he made a right fool of himself. Any idea who did it?”

  “We don’t know. So many suspects.”

  There was a silence. Hamish drank his coffee.

  “Must have been a shock to you,” said Mr. Johnston at last.

  “The murder?”

  “No, Priscilla.”

  “Yes, it was. I thought she might have warned me. Who’s the fellow?”

  “Some stockbroker in London. Lots of money. Parents are delighted.”

  “Still, she might have told me. When’s the wedding?”

  “Sometime in the spring.”

  “Here?”

  “No, London.”

  That’s a mercy, thought Hamish. He couldn’t bear the idea of her getting married in Lochdubh.

  He left the hotel and drove over to the village of Cnothan. He called at Police Sergeant Macgregor’s house to explain his presence on the other’s beat. “I don’t know why they sent you,” said Sergeant Macgregor. “I’ll put in a complaint about it.”

  “You do that,” said Hamish amiably. “Now, the television researcher was going to dig up old scandal for a programme. On the list were Finlay Swithers and Maisie Gough. Finlay Swithers, well, it was probably that charge of wife beating, but who is Maisie Gough?”

  “Poor wee mouse of a woman. Got accused a few years back of pinching the Mothers Union funds. Fact is, she’s a bit absent-minded and she’d given them to her friend, Mrs. Queen, for safekeeping and forgotten about it. Mrs. Queen was on holiday when she was accused. Comes back from holiday. Horrified to learn about Maisie. Charges dropped.”

  “So why her?”

  “Fault of the local papers. Charge reported but nothing when it was dropped. Word got around, of course, of her innocence, but anyone looking up the cuttings would still see the charge.”

  “Funny how they still talk about the cuttings,” said Hamish. “It’s probably all on computer discs these days. Where will I find her?”

  “Down by the loch. Waterside Cottages, number six. And when you’re finished, get out o’ my parish.”

  “Gladly,” said Hamish, who hated Cnothan.

  He walked down the drab, grey main street towards the black loch. It was one of those lochs artificially created by the Hydro Electric Board. No trees grew at its edge. No birds sang. Bleak, dreary, with a great dam at one end.

  He found Waterside Cottages and knocked at the door of number six. He waited. There was a chill feel of approaching autumn and a smell of peat smoke in the air.

  He frowned at the closed door. He sensed there was someone inside. He tried the door handle. The door swung open. He smelled gas and his heart began to race. He went into the kitchen. A small, grey-haired woman was lying with her head on a cushion inside the oven. Hamish switched off the gas and threw open the window. Then he lifted her gently out. “Miss Gough,” he said, raising her tear-stained face. “It iss not the coal gas. It iss the North Sea gas. You cannot be committing suicide with the North Sea gas.”

  “I cannae dae anything right,” she moaned and burst into tears. Hamish sat beside her on the floor, cradling her in his arms, and rocking her backwards and forwards as if soothing a hurt child. He waited patiently until she had finished crying, took out a clean handkerchief, and dried her face. He then lifted her up and placed her in an armchair next to the stove. “I’ll wait till the gas clears and make us a cup of tea. Was it because of the television people?”

  She nodded dumbly.

  “But you were innocent.”

  “It would all come out again. The shame. The fright. Even if people knew I was innocent, they’d think I was mad, not even remembering I’d given the money to Mrs. Queen.”

  “But it’s over. The woman’s dead. There won’t be any show.”

  She gave a pathetic little hiccup. “I thought they’d send someone else.”

  Hamish looked at her elderly crumpled figure, the hands crippled with arthritis, the tear-stained wrinkled face, and thought in that moment, if Crystal had been alive, he could cheerfully have killed her himself. “Is Mrs. Queen your friend?” he asked.

  “Yes, we’re very close.”

  “Would you have her phone number?”

  “It’s there, on a pad over the phone. I forget things these days.”

  “One of the problems of getting old,” said Hamish. He phoned Mrs. Queen and talked rapidly, then put the phone down. “She’ll be right round. You need someone with you.”

  He waited until Mrs. Queen arrived. She was a heavyset matron with a round, kindly face. “You leave Maisie to me,” she said.

  I didn’t ask her what she was doing on Monday, thought Hamish. He drew Mrs. Queen out into the narrow passage that ran from the front door to the back, off which the rooms led. He wondered if it was still called the lobby in Scotland. A song his mother used to sing to him, a relic of the Second World War when sausages were filled with all sorts of junk, came back to him and rang in his head:

  I love a sausage, a bonny Highland sausage,

  I put one in the oven for ma tea,

  I went into the lobby, to fetch ma Uncle Bobby,

  And the sausage came after me.

  “I didn’t ask Miss Gough what she was doing on Monday,” he whispered, “and I didn’t want to upset her further by asking her now. Do you know?”

  “She was with me all morning. We were cleaning the church. Oh, why didn’t the poor soul say anything about her worries?”

  “Never mind. Look after her. But keep telling her it’s all over. Nothing to worry about anymore.”

  It was hard on the older generation, thought Hamish as he walked away and eyed a group of youths lounging by the waterfront: white, pinched faces, gelled hair, dead eyes. Respectability was all. They’d kept themselves decent all their lives and done their bit for the church. The generations that came after couldn’t give a toss. He sighed and made his way to the fish and chip shop. It was closed. He looked at the opening hours. Didn’t open until five in the afternoon. He saw there was a flat above the shop and a door beside the plate glass window, which probably led to the upper premises. He rang the bell and waited. Then he heard footsteps clattering down the stairs. The door opened. A thin little man stood there, his face a mass of bad-tempered wrinkles and broken veins. “Mr. Swithers?” asked Hamish.

  “Aye, what d’ye want?”

  “I’m making enquiries into the death of Crystal French.”

  “What’s that to do with me?”

  “Can we go inside?”

  “I suppose. Place is a mess, mind.”

  He scampered up the stairs and Hamish followed him. A door at the top of the stairs led into a living room that made the word ‘mess’ seem like a euphemism. Overflowing ashtrays lay about, empty bottles, dirty clothes, greasy plates. Hamish lifted a pile of smelly clothes off a chair, sat down, and pulled out a notebook.

  “Where were you on Monday?” he asked.

  “Here. Why?”

  “Crystal French’s researcher contacted you with a view to doing a piece on you.”

  “So she did. I told her to get stuffed and slammed the phone down.”

  “Was it because you were charged with wife beating?”

  “That was years ago and Ruby, the wife, dropped the charges.”

  “And where is your wife?”

  “Left me right after. Silly cow. Down in Inverness with her mother.”

  “So where were you on Monday?”

  “Like I said, here.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “None. I slept late. Got up ab
out noon and started getting things ready for the evening trade. More work these days. Not happy with just the fish and chips anymore. Deep-fried pizza and chips, Mars Bars and chips. I’m telling you, changed days.”

  “So no one can give you an alibi?”

  “Why would I need an alibi? I wasn’t going to have anything to do with those TV people anyway. But you can ask the locals. I’ve lost my driving licence and the only way for me to get to Lochdubh is on the bus and the bus doesn’t run on Mondays.”

  Hamish drove slowly back to Lochdubh. His thoughts turned to Felicity Pearson. He would ask Jimmy Anderson if it was possible for him to interview her.

  Jimmy was waiting for him at the police station. A mobile police unit had been set up outside the village on the back road where Crystal’s body had been found, and Hamish could see uniformed policemen going from house to house.

  Jimmy followed Hamish into the police station and held out a chocolate biscuit to Lugs, who turned his head away. “What’s up wi’ your dog?”

  “If he eats chocolate he gets his teeth cleaned, and he doesnae like getting his teeth cleaned. So what’s new, Jimmy? What about that hose that was in the car? They trace it?”

  “They are trying. It was ordinary garden hose. Could have come from anywhere.”

  “I’ve been thinking, Jimmy, am I still in Carson’s favour?”

  “As far as I know. I mean, I don’t think he approves of you, but he’s sharp enough to want to pick your brains. Why?”

  “I would like permission to interview Felicity Pearson.”

  “Why her? And didn’t you interview her already, when you sat in on Carson’s interview?”

  “I’ve a funny feeling about her. I’d like to know more about her.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Did you get anywhere with the people on the list?”

  “Och, not a hope.”

  “You’d better send over your report.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Just a wee word of advice. You’ve got your mind so set on Felicity Pearson, it could stop you looking hard enough at other suspects.”

  Hamish looked at him haughtily. “I do not haff the closed mind. When did I effer haff the closed mind?”