Hamish Macbeth 18 (2002) - Death of a Celebrity

by M C Beaton

“That iss the truth!” shouted someone.

  “She had committed a small transgression away in the past due to a minor mental illness. She had received treatment for it. But the television people decided to muckrake. Having no sense of common decency themselves, they did not know what effect such exposure would have on a God-fearing woman. They were going to expose her on national television, hold her up to ridicule, and so she took her own life.”

  Hamish pointed down the church at Callum Bissett. “I wonder you dare show your face in here, for you killed that woman as surely as if you had poisoned her.”

  Callum Bissett shot to his feet and hurried out.

  “But I suggest we remember the charming lady we knew,” said Hamish, “and remember her in our prayers.”

  He regained his seat.

  Carson shifted uneasily in his pew. He wondered if Hamish Maebeth were a trifle mad. But round about him, villagers were murmuring their approval of his eulogy.

  At the end of the service, the coffin was raised on the shoulders of six villagers. A piper led the way, playing a lament.

  And then behind the coffin, the congregation walked out of the church and along the waterfront and over the humpbacked bridge to the cemetery. Hamish saw Elspeth a little way in front of him. He felt he had behaved badly last night, walking off like that. He could at least have given her a kiss on the cheek. But the wail of the pipe lament was being echoed back by the mountains and he felt a great sadness.

  They huddled around the graveside while the minister committed the body to the ground. Then he read the famous passage from Corinthians, “A time to love and a time to die.”

  Villagers were weeping openly as Mr. McClellan threw the first handful of earth on the coffin.

  Then they all walked to the church hall, sniffling and drying their eyes.

  He found the Americans beside him. “That was very affecting,” said Mr. Kirk.

  “You’d best come along to the church hall,” said Hamish. “There’s going to be hot food.”

  “I am by way of being in the same business as yourself, sir,” said Mr. Kirk.

  “Police?”

  “No, insurance investigator.”

  “Ah, same sort of work.”

  “Sometimes it can be very frustrating,” said Mr. Kirk. “There was a case in New Orleans. I was sure the husband had killed his wife but I couldn’t prove it and neither could the police.”

  “Why was that?”

  “This man had been out rowing with his wife. The boat capsized, she couldn’t swim and drowned. He said he made heroic efforts to save her. Trouble was, he had insured her life heavily. It had been a calm day. He said she was fooling around and had stood up in the boat and that’s what made it capsize. I checked around and found she wasn’t the sort of lady to fool around, she had never gone out with her husband before in the boat, and everyone including her husband knew she couldn’t swim. That was a mighty powerful speech you made in the church.”

  They were nearly at the church hall. Elspeth hovered for a moment by the entrance but Hamish was now engrossed in describing the murders to Mr. Kirk. She gave a slight shrug and walked into the hall.

  At first it was all very decorous and sad. People collected plates of food and sat at long tables talking in hushed whispers. At last, Dr. Brodie said something to Mr. McClellan and led him out of the hall.

  Whisky bottles were passed around. The talk became livelier. “How long does this go on?” asked Mr. Kirk, who was sitting next to Hamish.

  “It’ll go on until late. Ways have changed up here. Not so long ago, it would have gone on all week.”

  By evening, people were singing ballads and people were reciting poems. Mr. Kirk took out a large notebook and began to make notes as if reporting of some weird aboriginal tribe.

  Hamish noticed with surprise that his boss was still there, his tie loosened, chatting to the villagers.

  At last, when he saw an empty seat beside Elspeth, he rose and went to join her.

  “Everyone’s here,” he said. “Met your murderer yet?”

  “I told you, I was just joking, Hamish. I’ve got to leave shortly and write this up.”

  Her manner was cold, her silver eyes veiled.

  “I haven’t been reading my horoscope,” said Hamish. “Any more messages for me?”

  Elspeth got to her feet. “Not worth the effort, Hamish,” she said, and walked away.

  Elspeth went back to the office. “I took a load of photos,” said Sam Wills. “I’ll have them shortly and then you can do the captions. You know everyone in the village now, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Sitting down at her computer, Elspeth began to write her report slowly and carefully, for she had drunk too much whisky and Angela’s trifle had been swimming in sherry.

  Sam appeared with the photographs. She drank strong black coffee, numbered the photographs, and then began to write the captions. At one point she frowned. They couldn’t use all the photographs in the newspaper, so she discarded a pile of them after looking at them. There was one face missing, she was sure of it. She picked up the photographs again and studied them and then shook her head. She must have been mistaken.

  By midnight, she had finished.

  She switched off the computer and went out onto the waterfront. The lights were still blazing from the church hall. But what was the point in going back?

  Elspeth went home to her flat, glad she didn’t have to bother cooking, for she had eaten a lot at the reception.

  She washed and went to bed, and just before she closed her eyes, she vowed never to think of Hamish Macbeth again.

  “Yes, you can have my bed again, sir,” Hamish was saying patiently as he supported a very drunk Carson back to the police station.

  “I could live here,” said Carson, waving a drunken arm in the direction of the loch.

  “You might find it a bit boring,” said Hamish soothingly.

  He got his boss to bed and then took Lugs for a walk. “I’ll need to buy a good mattress and a duvet for that cell, Lugs,” said Hamish, “for I think I might be using it a lot.”

  He returned to the police station and wearily undressed and washed and got into the hard bed in the cell. Loud snores were coming from the bedroom. I feel just like a married man who’s had a tiff with the wife, thought Hamish.

  Elspeth sat bolt upright in bed. She could smell smoke, still hear the crackling of flames and the howl of a dog. What a dream! But so real!

  “I’m about to make a fool of myself,” she muttered. She got out of bed and went to the phone and phoned the police station.

  Hamish would not have bothered answering it had Lugs not already woken him by barking sharply. Lugs’s bark had risen to a howl as Hamish picked up the phone.

  “It’s Elspeth,” he heard. “Hamish, I’m probably mad, but take a look outside and make sure no one’s trying to set fire to the police station.”

  “Right.” He slammed down the phone. “Shhh,” he commanded Lugs. He crept through to the kitchen and, without switching on the light, peered through the window. To his left, he saw a sort of darker blackness and he smelled petrol.

  He took a powerful torch down from a shelf and gently unlocked the kitchen door and moved softly out into the blackness. Lugs had fallen silent but was right behind him.

  Suddenly Lugs hurtled off into the blackness. There was an oath and a sharp cry of pain.

  Hamish shone his torch. Finlay Swithers stood there, a petrol can beside him, trying to beat off Lugs, who had sunk his teeth into his leg.

  “Get the dog off me!” shouted Swithers. “My leg. Oh, my leg.”

  Hamish went swiftly up to him and twisted his arm up his back and only then did he command Lugs to let him go. He marched Swithers into the police station, into the cell, and locked him in.

  Then he roused Carson. “You’d best get up,” said Hamish. “It’s Finlay Swithers. He’s just tried to set fire to us.”

  Carson jumped out of bed and grabbed his
trousers and pulled them on. “Here,” said Hamish, throwing him a pullover. “Your shirt’s in the wash.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In the cell.”

  “Charged him yet?”

  “No, we’ll have a look at the evidence.”

  He gave Carson another torch and they went outside. Underneath the kitchen window, they found bales of straw soaked in petrol and at the front door of the police station as well. Carson phoned Strathbane and ordered them to send men over.

  Then he went to the cell, and while Hamish took notes, he charged Finlay Swithers with attempted murder and arson.

  “Why did you do it?” Carson demanded.

  “I wanted rid of that bastard,” said Swithers, glaring at Hamish. He stank of booze.

  “Right. This’ll put you away for a long time.”

  They had to wait until a team arrived from Strathbane. The petrol-soaked bales of straw had to be photographed and taken away for evidence, along with the can of petrol Hamish had found Swithers with and the empty cans of petrol that were found in his truck outside.

  “How did he hope to get away with it?” marvelled Carson.

  “He knew about the funeral,” said Hamish. “He knew everyone would be in the church. He picked his moment.”

  “I think I’m sober enough to get back to Strathbane,” said Carson wearily. “Just put my clothes in a bag. They won’t be dry yet. It’s a good thing you woke when you did.”

  Hamish wondered whether to tell him about Elspeth. She must have seen something, or was she psychic? He decided to leave it for the moment.

  “The cheek of the man,” said Carson as they walked out to his car. “He left threatening to sue you because that dog of yours bit his leg.”

  “At least he’ll be in prison where he should have been all along,” said Hamish. “Good night, sir.”

  “Did I make a fool of myself last night? I can’t remember getting to bed.”

  “Och, no, you were the perfect gentleman.”

  “See you, Hamish. By the way, my name’s Pat, short for Patrick.”

  “Go carefully, Pat.”

  “That I will. Take care.”

  Carson drove off. Hamish grinned. Blair would go ape if he knew he was on first-name terms with his superior officer.

  He went into the police station and phoned Elspeth. Her sleepy voice answered. “I suppose you’ve rung me at dawn to tell me what a fool I am.”

  “No, you were right. How did you know?”

  “I had a dream. It was so real. The flames, the smoke, the dog howling. I thought of Lugs and then I thought of you.”

  “So you are psychic, you have the second sight, just like the seer said. Has it happened before?”

  “Twice. But it always makes me feel sick and frightened. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m right grateful to you, Elspeth. I’m sorry I’ve been a bit…well…cold at times, but I don’t want another involvement. I don’t want anyone getting close.”

  “Who’s getting close?” demanded Elspeth crossly. “I mean, I would like if we could be friends.”

  “Okay. Now can I get back to sleep?”

  THIRTEEN

  Ok, thievish Night,

  Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,

  In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars,

  That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps

  With everlasting oil, to give due light

  To the misled and lonely traveller?

  —John Milton

  Any impetus there had been in solving the murder of Felicity Pearson had ebbed away. Hamish covered his local beat, attended to his crofting chores, and occasionally went over and over his notes, looking to see if there was anything he might have missed.

  On his day off, two weeks after the funeral, on impulse he phoned Grace Witherington and asked if he could have another chat with her. She told him to come over for coffee at three in the afternoon.

  He took Lugs with him, telling the dog to be on his best behaviour. The mobile van had gone from outside the flats. What the police in Strathbane were doing about solving the murder, Hamish did not know. Jimmy had been avoiding his phone calls and Carson had not made another visit to the police station in Lochdubh.

  “Come in,” said Grace, opening the door of the flats to him. “I’m upstairs.”

  “Is it all right if I bring my dog?”

  “Certainly. I like dogs. I don’t have one myself anymore,” she said, mounting the stairs. “My old dog, Queenie, died ten years ago and I couldn’t bear to get another. They need such a lot of love and attention and I wasn’t free to travel. Of course, I could have put Queenie in kennels like everyone else who goes abroad, but then, I knew I wouldn’t enjoy my holiday. I’d always have been worrying about how she was getting on. Here we are.”

  She led the way through a small hall and into a book-lined living room. “Make yourself comfortable and I’ll get the coffee.”

  Lugs stretched out in front of the fire. Hamish suddenly found he was fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette packet. How odd that after all this time, he should still automatically go through the motions of looking for a cigarette.

  Grace came in carrying a laden tray, which she set down on a low table in front of him. “Help yourself to sugar and milk and tell me why you have come. I’m intrigued.”

  “It’s Felicity Pearson,” said Hamish. “I get a picture of a vain, weak, not likeable woman, and yet you were a friend of hers. I’m trying to get a better picture of her.”

  “Now you’re making me feel guilty,” said Grace. “I wasn’t ever a friend of hers, I told you that. The fact is that the television programme she produced brought me in some welcome money. I wanted to keep her on my side. I am afraid she was in fact all the things you said about her. But I began to think even the television programme wasn’t worth the hours I spent listening to her talk about herself. Have you heard the actor’s joke? That’s enough about me. Let’s talk about my performance.”

  “So there was no one she was really close to?”

  “Have you tried Rory MacBain?”

  “I think that one didn’t care what she was like and what she looked like. All he was after was a quickie on the office floor when it suited him.”

  “Dear me. I should feel sorry for her but I can’t. I had really begun to dislike her so much, you see. I read in the papers this morning that she has been found guilty of the murder of Crystal French.”

  “So they’ve released that bit of news at last. How did you feel when you read it?” asked Hamish.

  “Do you know, I wasn’t surprised, and yet I should be. I mean, when she was here talking to me, I didn’t think, oh, here’s a murderer. But if that murder’s solved, why do you want to know about her?”

  “Because her own murder isn’t solved.”

  “She was killed down at the old docks. No one saw or heard anything?”

  “I don’t know what headquarters have got, but I don’t think they’ve found any witnesses.”

  “Wait a minute. Drink your coffee. It’s getting cold. There’s something. We were doing a discussion programme on drugs and the menace of crack and heroin in Strathbane. Professor Tully said something like the old docks should be pulled down to make way for waterfront housing because they were only a marketplace for drug dealing. I mean, it’s a long shot. But someone might have been there that night who didn’t want to have anything to do with the police.”

  “You might have something there,” said Hamish slowly. “I’d better have a word with Professor Tully first. He might just have thrown that in to pretend to an inside knowledge he doesn’t have.”

  “How cynical of you and how well you know him!”

  “I don’t know him, but he’s a Highlander.”

  “And it takes one to know one?”

  “Exactly.”

  Hamish drove over to Bonar Bridge. The light was already fading fast and cold little stars twinkled above in th
e Sutherland sky.

  Professor Tully lived in an old Georgian house, just outside the town. It was Scottish Georgian, eighteenth century, square and without ornament. The garden was a wilderness of weeds.

  To Hamish’s relief, the professor was at home. He invited Hamish in but insisted Lugs be left outside. “I have cats,” he explained.

  “Lugs is very kind to cats,” said Hamish.

  “No dog is kind to cats,” replied the professor, so Hamish had to take Lugs back and shut him in the Land Rover.

  Hamish went back into the house. The professor ushered him through to a dark and grimy kitchen where not much seemed to have been changed since the eighteenth century. There were two old stone sinks and enormous wooden dressers, their once-white paint yellow with age. Light came from a dingy forty-watt bulb high up in the ceiling.

  “So how can I help you?” asked Professor Tully.

  “On one of your discussion programmes, you said that the old docks at Strathbane should be pulled down because they had become a market for drug dealing.”

  The professor leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “I can remember those docks when they were thriving. I can even remember Strathbane when it wasn’t a sink of iniquity, a monstrous carbuncle on the face of the Highlands.”

  “But about the drugs?”

  “I wouldn’t want to be getting anyone in trouble.”

  “I’m only interested in finding out a possible witness to the murder of Felicity Pearson.”

  The professor lowered his gaze to the battered kitchen table, which still held the remains of his lunch.

  “You see,” he said at last, “there’s this lad lives in Bonar Bridge. He’s clean now. But I got talking to him one day when I was shopping in town. He said he used to buy his stuff down at the docks, said it was a sort of marketplace at night. He said it was safer than the clubs because the police hardly ever went around the docks at night.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t think…”

  “If he’s clean, then he won’t be getting to trouble and any information he gives me, well, I’ll protect the source.”

  “It’s Barry Williams, a young English fellow. Family moved up here some years ago.”