by M C Beaton
Jimmy knew by the sudden sibilance of Hamish’s accent that he was seriously annoyed. Jimmy, who knew about Priscilla’s engagement, thought that the news of that was turning Hamish’s mind away from its usual clear logic.
“Tell me about the others,” he said.
Hamish went over what they had all said, leaving out only the attempted suicide of Maisie Gough. If Sergeant Macgregor leaned of that, it would be all over Cnothan.
“Those two sons of the Harrison woman,” said Jimmy, “Iain and Jamie, now they’re a bad lot. They’ve been in trouble a couple of times for drunk and disorderly.”
“So have an awful lot of people in the Highlands.”
“But you must admit, they’re brutal and devoted to their mother. Did you have a word with them?”
“No.”
“Why not, Hamish?”
“Because I feel the further we get away from the television people, the further we get away from solving the murder.”
“Hamish Macbeth, you forget you are supposed to be the village bobby, conscientious and plodding. Before you put your report in, I would suggest you go and see them.”
“Is that an order?”
“I’m just covering your back for you, man.”
Hamish sighed. “I’ll go now.”
As he drove to Braikie, he turned over what Jimmy had said, and his common sense told him that he was in danger of letting things slip. The Harrisons’ croft lay out on the far side of Braikie. As he was driving along the main street, Ian Chisholm darted out in front of the Land Rover and waved to Hamish to stop. Ian Chisholm ran the garage in Lochdubh but had recently opened up a laundrette in Braikie.
Hamish stopped and opened the window. “It’s them gypsies,” panted Ian. “Look over there.” He pointed to the laundrette. Spray painted in red on the window was the legend: THE MACHINES IN THIS LAUNDRETTE ARE ALL BROKEN DOWN LIKE THE SILLY OLD FART WHO OWNS THEM.
Hamish bit back a smile. “Are you sure it’s the gypsies?”
“Who else? I caught them fiddling with the dials with a screwdriver, trying to get free washes.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“You take on one gypsy and you take on the lot.”
“I’ve got to see someone first and then I’ll have a word with them.”
Iain and Jamie Harrison were both sitting in the kitchen of their croft house when Hamish drove up. They went out to meet him. They were both squat burly men, both bachelors, both truculent.
Hamish climbed down from the Land Rover and faced them. “I would like to know where you pair were last Monday.”
“Why?” demanded lain.
“A woman was murdered, or didn’t you hear?”
“Oh, the television lassie. Good riddance to bad rubbish,” said Jamie. “What’s it got to do with us?”
“Your mother had a hard time at her hands. You both had a reason to hate her. So where were you?”
“Mending dry stone walls. Sheep knocked down a length over the back field.”
“I’ll have a look.”
Hamish strode off, his regulation boots squelching in the soggy grass. Trails of misty rain were drifting over the mountains and a curlew set up its mournful call from the heather. The air was balmy and sweet with the smells of wild thyme and heather. He came to the wall. Sure enough, a long stretch of it showed signs of repair, but who could say they had done it on Monday?
He returned to where they were still waiting. “Any witnesses to the fact that you were working on that wall on Monday?”
“Matt Soutar ower the next croft came by for a crack and to ask us if we’d do one o’ his walls. He was with us most of the morning.”
Hamish left them and called on the next croft, where Matt Soutar confirmed the Harrisons’ story. Hamish studied the crofter’s face as he talked, knowing that Highlanders could be accomplished liars, but Soutar seemed honest enough.
Now for the gypsies, he thought.
SIX
Go, and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil’s foot.
—John Donne
The gypsies had loaded up their sideshows and rides. There was bustle everywhere. They were preparing to move on.
Hamish had dealt with them many times before, complaining about squint sights on the rifles at the shooting gallery, coconuts glued down at the coconut shy, and blocks of wood under the prizes at the hoopla stand that were just that clever fraction too big, to ensure that no hoop would fall cleanly over the prize. The senior member of the gypsies was John Grey. Hamish headed for his trailer.
John opened the door to him. “I wisnae there,” he said immediately, “and I’ve got twenty witnesses to the fact.”
“I’m sure you have,” retorted Hamish wearily. “But I’m sure we can both save a lot of time. You do what I tell you, and then I don’t need to turn this camp over for a can of red spray paint or haul you into the police station for questioning. You will go to the laundrette and wash that paint off the window.”
“It wisnae me.”
“It was one of you. There’s a lot of police in Lochdubh because of this murder. I can get them over here to turn every single place over.”
They stared at each other. John Grey’s eyes, Hamish noticed for the first time, were an odd silvery colour. They reminded him of Elspeth’s eyes. What had she said? We have these feelings sometimes. We? He had never asked Elspeth where she came from.
John Grey nodded. It was enough. Hamish knew that headquarters would have been furious if he had taken their manpower away. He turned away and then turned back. “Know anyone called Elspeth Grant?”
A sort of cloud veiled John Grey’s eyes—a sure sign, Hamish knew of old, that the man was about to lie. “Cannae say I’ve heard of her.”
Hamish walked away. He would ask Elspeth where she came from.
As he drove back to Lochdubh, he noticed the nights were beginning to get dark early. Soon there would only be a little light during the day as the long northern winter set in. The stars were blazing overhead. His stomach rumbled. He had forgotten to get anything to eat.
Back at the police station, he fed Lugs and himself and then phoned Jimmy Anderson. “Did you ask whether I could interview Felicity Pearson?” he asked.
“Aye, and I’ve set up an interview for you. She’ll see you at her place in the morning.”
“Where’s that?”
“Thon flats on the Inverness road, number twenty-five, flat two A.”
“What time?”
“Nine o’clock. She’s due at work at ten.”
“Grand, Jimmy. One thing. That hat and glasses that Sean Fitzpatrick saw the driver of the BMW wearing. Any places been searched?”
“Everyone’s home has been searched, including the managing director.”
“And what about the video camera at the garage? Get any film of her leaving?”
“Yes. Getting in her car, but no hat and glasses and with her hair up.”
“So she wasn’t attacked at home. Thanks for the chance of the interview.”
“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, Hamish. She’s just a faded wee thing. I don’t think she could swot a fly.”
“I’ll let you know how I get on.”
“You’ll do more than that. You’ll come round here afterwards and type out a report.”
“Aye, I’ll do that.”
As Hamish put down the receiver there was a knock at the kitchen door. When he opened it, Elspeth was standing there. Instead of her usual rag bag of thrift shop clothes, she was wearing a cherry red dress under a smart black coat. Hamish wondered if she had dressed up for him. “You’re looking smart,” he said, ushering her into the kitchen.
“I’ve just got back from a charity fashion show in Inverness.” She swung off her coat. I might have known, thought Hamish. No woman’s going to go to the trouble of dressing up for me. The red d
ress clung to her, revealing that she had an excellent high-breasted figure.
“So what brings you?” asked Hamish.
“Friendly call. How’s it going?”
“Dead ends everywhere.”
“I’ve been thinking. I can’t believe Crystal would wear a large hat and glasses. She liked everyone to recognise her.”
“Well, they think she was stunned outside the car. So there’s a good chance the murderer was the one in the hat and glasses. Where are you from, Elspeth?”
“Here and there.”
“Now, that’s not an answer to be giving a policeman. If I was nosy enough I could find out.” He lifted a bottle of whisky down from the cupboard. “Jimmy hasn’t left much but there’s enough for a dram. Are you a gypsy?”
She coloured slightly. “What makes you say that?”
“Just an idea.”
“I’m half a one. My mother was a Grey but broke with them to marry a plumber down in Inverness. He went off and left her after I was born, but she had a lot of pride and wouldn’t go back to her family. She said she was sick of moving the whole time. She was bright. She worked as a secretary and put me through school. I was going to go to university, but she got ill with cancer, so I got a job in Inverness in a factory out in the industrial estate and nursed her till she died.”
“So where did you get your journalistic experience?”
“I didn’t. I haven’t. I was doing secretarial work like my mother, but it was boring. I saw a small item in the Inverness Courier about Sam starting a paper up here. I travelled up and asked him for a job. I suggested the astrology and the recipes and the home hints. He asked me to produce examples, and I had several articles already written. He was impressed so he employed me. I got a room in the village, so here I am.”
“And do you enjoy it?”
“Oh, yes. Something different every day. One day a baking competition, another, a murder.”
“Think of getting a job on one of the nationals? There were a few reporters from the big papers around the village right after the murder.”
“I shouldn’t think so. Sam lets me be my own boss.”
“So is Angus Macdonald going to take over the astrology column?”
“No. Sam says that people like my way of doing it.”
“And have you heard anything that might interest me?”
“Not a whisper.”
They sipped their whisky in companionable silence for a while. Lugs put his head on Elspeth’s knee and gazed up into her face with his blue eyes. “What an odd dog,” she said. “Some of the villagers are a bit afraid of Lugs. They think he’s someone who’s come back, because of those eyes of his.”
“There’s still a good few of them around here that still think folks come back as seals,” said Hamish.
“And do you?”
“No, though mind you I’ve seen seals out on the rocks that look like some of the villagers.”
“I can’t imagine, say, the Currie sisters as seals.”
“I can. They would organise the whole colony. In no time at all, those seals would be fund raising for charity and turning up at church.”
“So what’s your next move?”
“In this case?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to interview Felicity Pearson tomorrow.”
“The researcher?”
“Herself.”
“Which means you suspect her,” said Elspeth.
“Why would a mere village bobby want to go to Strathbane to interview someone not on his beat?”
“I have a feeling about the lassie.”
“Why her? Why not one of the others? Her bosses, for example. She was having affairs with both of them.”
“How did you hear that?”
“Word gets around.”
“So why did you tell me you had heard nothing?”
“I knew you would know.”
“How?”
“I cannot reveal my source, Officer. I’d best be getting home.”
She put on her coat and Hamish walked her to the door. She turned and looked up at him. Those silver eyes of hers seemed to suddenly grow larger. He found himself saying, “Perhaps we might have dinner one evening?”
“Yes, that would be fine. Shall we say Sunday at eight?”
“Yes,” said Hamish.
Her eyes suddenly seemed to diminish to their normal size. “See you,” she said cheerfully and swung out into the dark night where the blazing stars above were reflected in the black waters of the loch.
Felicity had a flat in what had once been a manse. Church ministers were expected to have many children in the last century, so the Victorian building had provided ample space for modern flat conversions.
Hamish pressed the bell marked 2A and was buzzed into an entrance hall. Felicity opened a door on the left. “I hope you are not going to take up too much of my time,” she said. “I’m busy.”
“And so am I,” rejoined Hamish. “Murder takes up a lot of a policeman’s time.”
The living room looked like a shrine to what Felicity considered the days of her success. There were photographs of her in studios, on sets, out in the countryside with a camera crew, at television parties, laughing loudly and showing as many teeth as Cherie Blair.
It was a bleak room, because it had the Victorian height of ceiling, and it was cold.
Hamish removed his cap and set it on a coffee table. “I don’t really know what more I can say that I haven’t already,” said Felicity. “I mean, everything’s been checked.”
He studied her. She was wearing a pale blue lambs-wool sweater and a string of cultured pearls with a tweed skirt. Her hair was scraped back in a knot. Her eyes were light, no colour, and restless.
“The BMW that Crystal was supposed to have been driving…”
“What do you mean?” demanded Felicity shrilly. “Of course she was driving it!”
“Well now, that is the strange thing,” said Hamish. “The car was spotted on the Drim road, but the driver was wearing dark glasses and a big hat. We have a video security camera film from the garage opposite her place and it shows her leaving in the morning, without the hat and glasses and with her hair up, so what does that tell you?”
“That she had a hat and glasses in the car and put them on later.”
“No. Whoever attacked her did it outside the car. At one point she was lying in the heather. An attempt had been made to disguise that fact. Her hair had been brushed down but a couple of tiny little bits of heather were still caught in it.”
“She was probably driving with the windows open and some bits of heather got blown in on it,” said Felicity. “Then she knew she was going to be on camera soon, so she probably brushed her hair out herself.”
“My, you do have the answers, Miss Pearson. Tell me about yourself. How did you get started with Strathbane Television?”
She glanced impatiently at a clock on the wall, but she said, “I came to Strathbane Television ten years ago. I was secretary to Rory MacBain. He gave me a chance of being a researcher, then a director, and then he gave me my own show, Countryside. It was my idea to have a Gaelic show.”
I wonder if she had an affair with Rory, thought Hamish.
“How did you feel, Miss Pearson, when your show was axed?”
“Well, it was a bit of a blow, but Rory told me it was only temporary, that they would find something else for me. I thought, mind you, that he would at least have suggested I direct one of Crystal’s shows instead of making me a researcher.”
“And what was it like working for Crystal French?”
She smoothed out a pleat in her tweed skirt with a careful hand, her head down. “You know how it is, one just goes with the flow.”
“No, I don’t know how it is. From what I have learned of Miss French’s character, I would have thought it would have been very humiliating indeed.”
“Well, it was a bit,” she mumbled. “When she learned that she was there to replace m
y show, she asked to see a video of it, and then she trashed it in front of me and everyone. She ordered me around like a slave, getting me to do her shopping for her and make her appointments at the hairdresser.”
“Were you having an affair with Rory MacBain?”
Colour flooded her face. “Of course not! How can you even suggest such a thing? I will report you to your superiors.”
“Just doing my job.” Hamish consulted his notes. They had been sent over that morning by Jimmy Anderson. “You talked to Mrs. Wellington, the Currie sisters, Mrs. Brodie, people in Patel’s grocery store, and finished with Mary Hendry. You went to Mrs. Hendry at eleven and did not leave until twelve noon. Why so long?”
“I was tired of the job. I knew I wouldn’t get anyone to say anything bad about you and that Crystal would be furious. Mary was sympathetic. We had tea and talked a long time.”
“About what?”
“Chit-chat. Life in general. It’s been checked.”
“So I see.”
“I don’t know why you’re questioning me again,” said Felicity. “What about all the other people who must have wished her dead? There was that crofter…”
“Barry McSween. He’s got a good alibi.”
“Not him. Johnny Liddesdale.”
“Why him?”
Felicity bit her lip. “I’m not supposed to tell you. He phoned up after the ‘Myth of the Poor Crofter’ show. He said he would kill her.”
“Why has no one been told about this?”
“There were a lot of calls like that. I can’t remember the other ones. I remembered him because the others were just members of the public. He was the only one who had been interviewed.”
“So why weren’t you supposed to say anything?”
“Rory said it couldn’t have been him because he’s just a wee crofter and if it came out, it would look bad for the television station, I mean riling someone decent like that.”
“Is there anyone else you’re not telling me about?”
“No, I think that’s it. Can I go? I’m running late.”
“Are you getting your show back again?”
“They said I would. But they’ve changed their minds.” She stood up and picked up her handbag.
