Hamish Macbeth 18 (2002) - Death of a Celebrity

by M C Beaton

  The ambulance men arrived, and the body was carried out past a silent throng of villagers.

  Elspeth was waiting with them. “Hamish?”

  “Not now,” he said.

  He turned and went back into the house where Dr. Brodie was sitting with Mr. McClellan. “I won’t be bothering you now,” said Hamish. “But I’ll need a word with you tomorrow.”

  The bank manager looked at Hamish with dazed eyes. “Why?” he said. “We were happy here.”

  Jimmy Anderson came in. “A word with you outside, Jimmy,” said Hamish.

  They walked out. “Suicide?” asked Jimmy.

  “Yes, she took an overdose. It was that business about shoplifting that must have been preying on her mind. She’d been done for shoplifting years ago and got treatment. Those television bastards had been after her for their damned programme. It was dropped after Crystal’s death, but Felicity was starting the whole business up again.”

  “And now Felicity’s dead. Think she did it?”

  “No. Not in a hundred years. She was a grand lady. This should never have happened. Such a petty little offence, and so many years ago. Those whoring scum over in Strathbane don’t know the meaning of decency and respectability. The very idea of putting a bank manager’s wife on the rack in front of the cameras must have given them a thrill.”

  “Aye, well, I’d best make arrangements to take the husband over to the procurator fiscal tomorrow,” said Jimmy. “Get a statement?”

  “I’ll leave it to the morning. Thiss iss a bad business.”

  “It is that.”

  Hamish sighed. “One more thing. We’d best go back in and see if she left a note. I wass that upset, I didn’t ask.”

  Jimmy judged from the thickening of Hamish’s accent that he was very disturbed indeed. That was the trouble with village policing, thought Jimmy. You got too close to people.

  They walked back in. “Mr. McClellan,” said Hamish gently, “did your wife leave a note?”

  His eyes filled with tears and he dug into his pocket and drew out a crumpled sheet of paper and silently handed it over.

  Hamish and Jimmy moved a little away and read it. “Dear John,” it said. “The old scandal’s started again and I can’t bear it. I can’t take it anymore. Please forgive me. All my love, Fiona.”

  The paper was blotched with tears. Jimmy took out an envelope and carefully placed the pathetic little note inside.

  “I think you should leave things for the moment,” said Dr. Brodie. “I’ll give Mr. McClellan a sedative.”

  Jimmy and Hamish went back outside. The cold and merciless stars shone down on them.

  “I’ll see you,” said Hamish, and walked back to the police station. He heard the patter of feet, running to catch up with him, and turned round.

  “Was it suicide?” asked Elspeth.

  Hamish was suddenly consumed with a blinding hatred for the whole of the media.

  “Get lost,” he snarled.

  Elspeth took a step back as if he had struck her.

  Hamish went on to the police station. The dark figure of Mr. Patel, the Indian who owned the general stores, detached itself from the shadows.

  “I have to talk to ye, Hamish, about poor Mrs. McClellan. I feel that guilty.”

  Mr. Patel had come to Scotland years ago, peddling goods in a suitcase from door to door, saving every penny until he was able to buy a shop. Hamish was always mildly surprised to hear a Scottish accent emerging from his Indian face.

  They went into the kitchen. Lugs gave Mr. Patel a rapturous welcome, seeing in him a giver of dog biscuits.

  “So what’s this about?” asked Hamish.

  “It wass herself, poor Mrs. McClellan. I could not believe my eyes. I have that mirror behind the counter that reflects what’s going on in the shop. And then I saw herself sliding things into her shopping basket. I didn’t mind. I thought a respectable lady like that would pay for them at the counter. But when she only put one packet of cornflakes on the counter, I told her to come into the back shop.

  “I took the stuff she had pinched out of her shopping basket and laid it down. I said. “What’s this about?” She began to cry sore and said she meant to pay for it and forgot. It told her I would not be reporting her to the police this time, but I would have a word with her husband. She began to cry harder and said I must not tell her husband. I said I would think about it. And now the poor lady’s dead.”

  “You weren’t to know,” said Hamish heavily. “She’d been done years ago for shoplifting and got treatment for kleptomania. Somehow those TV people got hold of her past. There was a bit in the Strathbane paper at the time. It came up before. That village dustman, him that was murdered, he ferreted it out and was blackmailing her, and she was so afraid of her husband learning that the old scandal had surfaced that she paid him. I kept it quiet then. You see, she told me that after the scandal, her husband had given up a good job as bank manager in Strathbane and moved here to start a new life. The worry must have brought her old illness up again. Oh, God, what a waste. She wass the fine woman.”

  “She wass that,” said Mr. Patel, his dark eyes swimming with tears.

  “I’ll put in my report,” said Hamish, “and I’ll beg them to keep it away from the press.”

  When Mr. Patel had left, Hamish typed up his report and sent it over to Strathbane. Then he went to bed with Lugs curled against his side. Before he went to sleep, he had a sudden memory of Elspeth’s stricken face. He had told her a lot and yet she had not betrayed him by printing one word. He would need to apologise to her. Then he thought of Priscilla. She seemed very distant now. And yet there had been a time when he had imagined her living here with him as his wife, imagined an idyllic married life. He drifted off to sleep.

  TEN

  Though the day of my destiny’s over,

  And the star of my fate has declined.

  —Lord Byron

  Hamish awoke next day with a heavy heart. He dressed and went along to the bank manager’s house. Mr. McClellan was sitting, white-faced, in his living room with Dr. Brodie in attendance beside him. Hamish took a short statement. Dr. Brodie said a police car would be arriving soon to take Mr. McClellan over to the procurator fiscal in Strathbane.

  Returning to the police station, Hamish sent over the statement to Strathbane and then phoned the television station and asked to speak to Amy Cornwall. When she came on the line, he said he would be coming over to see her to ask her a few questions. “I’ll be free at noon,” she said cheerfully. Hamish agreed to see her then, thinking that of all of them, Amy seemed about the only one to have nothing on her conscience—which could be, he calculated, because she hadn’t got one.

  He was driving out of Lochdubh when he saw the lone figure of Elspeth leaning on the parapet of the humpbacked bridge. He slowed a little, thinking he should apologise to her, and then weakly decided to put it off until later.

  When he parked outside the television station, he had to fight down a strong feeling of revulsion towards the building and everyone in it. He walked in and reported at the reception desk and was told Amy would be down in a few minutes.

  While he was waiting for her, he suddenly remembered how Rory MacBain had caved in when he had suggested the DNA sample. But he had said he had not seen her for two weeks. He must have done and he must have had intercourse with her shortly before her death, or why else would that have made him confess?

  There was a slight cough and Hamish found Amy standing in front of him. “Can we do the interview somewhere outside?” said Amy. “This place is giving me the creeps.”

  “I know how you feel,” said Hamish. “There’s a café across the road.”

  They found a table at the window. It was a busy shopping day and the townspeople of Strathbane surged past: jeans and trainers, bomber jackets, anoraks, walking along slouched, vacant eyes, sour mouths. Well, if I lived here, I’d probably get like that, thought Hamish.

  “So what do you want to ask me?” Am
y looked at him out of her bright blue eyes.

  “Before we start, do you know that Mrs. McClellan, the bank manager’s wife, one of your research subjects, thanks to you, committed suicide last night?”

  “That’s a bummer. But those kleptomaniacs are all a bit unbalanced anyway, aren’t they?”

  “Don’t you care?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing to do with me.”

  He decided that if he started to argue with her or berate her he wouldn’t get much out of her. “The behind-the-lace-curtains show was to go on with Felicity as presenter. Had you started to interview the same people again?”

  “No, I hadn’t begun the research. But there was an item in the papers about Felicity doing that show, so I suppose some of them, like Mrs. McClellan, might have got rattled.”

  Hamish fought down his dislike for her with an effort. “Would Felicity, when Crystal was presenting that show, do some report for this programme on her own without telling you?”

  “She might have done. Crystal treated her badly, and the worse Crystal got, the more Felicity crawled to her like a whipped dog.”

  “Did you know that Felicity was having an affair with Rory MacBain?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Caught them at it in his office one night. Rory had asked me to type out a report and get it to him quick. He must have forgotten asking me, for when I pushed open his office door, they were hard at it on the floor. They didn’t see me. I opened the door quietly and then I shut it quietly.”

  “The night before she was murdered, was Felicity in the office late?”

  “I think so. We were all working late. You see, Callum Bissett likes endless meetings that go on forever and usually never get anything resolved. There’s been an offer to buy over Strathbane Television. Jackson’s, one of the biggest television companies, have put in a bid. Callum thinks the shareholders will go for it. The meeting ended at nine o’clock. We all went our separate ways. Felicity had been given Crystal’s old office. I saw a light under the door before I left.”

  So Rory could have had sex with Felicity before he left the office, thought Hamish. He’s got to tell us more than he has been doing.

  “Do you think Felicity could have killed Crystal?”

  “A rabbit like that! Still, now I come to think of it, it was hard to really know Felicity. She was a devious woman, secretive. But you wouldn’t want that to be the case. I mean, if Felicity killed Crystal, who killed Felicity?”

  “So what happens to the programme, Highland Life, with both presenters dead?”

  “Nothing. I think we’ll cruise along on old movies and old sitcoms until this bid takes place. They’re doing a special memorial programme on both Crystal and Felicity this evening. Crystal’s body has been released for burial, so the funeral’s taking place in Edinburgh today and a team have gone down to film it.”

  “Did anyone on your list for the programme actually want to go in front of the camera?”

  “Not one. Nothing but threats.”

  “And that didn’t make you stop?”

  “Oh, no, we were just going to swoop on them, and even if we got doors slammed in our faces, Crystal was going to stand in front of their houses and describe what they had done.”

  “You are a bunch of right bastards, aren’t you?” demanded Hamish.

  Amy shrugged again. “That’s show business.”

  Carson, passing the detectives’ room later, saw Hamish typing busily away and told him to follow him up to his office. “Any results from the lab on that hair sample?” asked Hamish.

  “Not yet. What have you got?”

  Hamish described his interview with Amy. “I’ll get Rory MacBain back round here now,” said Carson. “What is it?” For Hamish suddenly had that struck-by-lightning look.

  “The day Crystal was murdered,” said Hamish slowly. “That was the day the Highland Times came out. She was anxious to see her astrology forecast. Felicity said that Crystal had sent out that morning for a copy of the paper, but how would Felicity know that? I mean, she left at eight. I’m beginning to think that Felicity stopped her on the road to Lochdubh.”

  “Could be. But we’ll know something as soon as that lab report comes through. I’ll get MacBain round. You can sit in on the interview.”

  “I’ll wait for my lawyer,” said Rory MacBain pompously.

  “Then I think we should pass the time by taking a blood sample,” said Carson.

  “Why?”

  “I think it will prove that you had sex with Felicity Pearson before she died.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “So if you just wait here, I’ll get someone…”

  Rory caved in. “Okay, okay. It was just a quickie in her office.”

  “I must warn you that if you try to impede police enquiries any further by covering up or lying, I will charge you. So go on. At what time did you have intercourse with her?”

  “Sometime after the meeting broke up,” said Rory, his face as red as Hamish’s hair. “Say about quarter past nine.”

  “And when did you finish?”

  “I suppose about nine-thirty.”

  “And what was her state of mind?”

  “Well, you know.”

  “No, I don’t, and I’m waiting for you to tell us.”

  “Sort of giggly and clingy. She was after me again to get a divorce. I refused. She went off to her office.”

  “And was that the last you saw of her?”

  “She came back in about ten o’clock. She asked if she found out something that would make the show a nationwide hit, would I marry her? I said I would marry anyone who got us nationwide and she said something like, watch this space, and that’s the truth and that is definitely the last time I saw her.”

  “So you feel she had learned of some big story?”

  “Not really. She was a bit of a fantasist.”

  “And she said nothing about a meeting at the docks?”

  “Not a word.”

  “How late did you stay in the office?”

  “Until ten-thirty. Then I went home to the wife. God, she’ll kill me if this comes out.”

  “At the moment, we will only be asking her to corroborate your statement. You may go, but if you are leaving Strathbane, please inform us of your movements and leave your passport at police headquarters. That will be all…for the moment.”

  When he had left, Carson turned to Hamish. “Let us suppose that Felicity killed Crystal. Felicity was going to do that muckraking programme. Mrs. McClellan committed suicide over it. Someone else may have been worried enough to murder Felicity. I’m afraid you will need to go back and see them all again, including the crofter and shopkeepers she humiliated. Get on with it, man. What are you waiting for?”

  Hamish glanced at Maggie, who had been on duty at the tape machine. She saw him looking and turned her back on him.

  For heaven’s sake, thought Hamish angrily, as he walked to his Land Rover. You would think I had been having an affair with the girl and jilted her. I only had a business dinner with her. Now I’d better go back and apologise to Elspeth, although thon lassie is weird. There’s something about her that’s strange.

  But when he got back to the police station, he was suddenly filled with heavy inertia. The thought of Priscilla entered his mind and he savagely pushed it away. He was tired and depressed and did not feel like spending the rest of the day in interviews.

  He needed something to clear his brain, something to take his mind away from the case. He decided to see if Archie Maclean could lend him a rowing boat.

  He walked to the harbour with Lugs trotting along at his heels. He saw the bundled-up figure of Elspeth standing at the harbour and nearly turned back, but then he decided he’d better get the apology out of the way.

  Elspeth was wearing her fishing hat and an ankle-length tweed coat that had seen better days and a pair of boots as heavy and clumsy as his own.

  “I’m sorry,” said Hami
sh, going up to her. “I’m sorry I shouted at you. But I got this hatred for the whole of the media.”

  “It’s a bad business,” said Elspeth sadly. “What a waste of a life.”

  “It is that.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  “Fishing. Thought I might catch some mackerel.”

  She turned away from him, her shoulders hunched. “I leave you to it then.”

  On impulse, Hamish said, “Like to come?”

  Her odd eyes lit up. “Love to. I’m off work today.”

  “Well, let’s see if Archie’s awake and can spare the boat.”

  They walked to Archie’s little cottage beside the harbour and knocked at the door.

  Mrs. Maclean opened the door. A cloud of steam wreathed itself around her red and angry features. “Oh, it is yourself,” she said crossly. “I’m boiling clothes.”

  And shrinking them as usual, thought Hamish as her husband appeared behind her in his tight and uncomfortable suit.

  Mrs. Maclean retreated back into the kitchen. “I wondered if we could have the loan of your rowboat, Archie,” said Hamish. “I’d like to see if I can get some mackerel.”

  “Help yourself,” said Archie gloomily. “I hate wash days.”

  “I thought every day in your house was wash day,” said Hamish sympathetically.

  “That it is. One o’ these days, herself is going to boil me in the copper and hang me on the line. She should ha’ married that Willie Lament and they could ha’ scrubbed and cleaned together all the day long. Have you got a spinner for the mackerel?”

  “No,” said Hamish. “I can’t find mine. I was hoping…”

  “Wait there,” said Archie. “Though it’ll be a mercy if she isnae cleaning that as well.”

  But he returned with the spinner. Hamish thanked him. Elspeth and he and Lugs walked down the sea-weedy steps cut into the harbour wall to the shore of Lochdubh. “That’s Archie’s boat,” said Hamish. “Jump in and I’ll give you a push.”

  Hamish took off his boots and socks, lifted Lugs in beside Elspeth, and pushed the boat out. Then he climbed in and put his boots and socks on before picking up the oars.