by M C Beaton
“I think we’d better tell the police anyway.” Diarmuid took out his much-prized mobile phone and dialled 999.
Chapter Eight
Love is like a dizziness,
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his bizziness.
– James Hogg
The murders of Mark Lussie and Annie Fleming had disappeared from the newspapers and from any of Strathbane’s investigations. Hamish greeted the news of Roger Burton’s murder with relief. It was Strathclyde’s case, and, as he alone was still determined to solve the local murders, he was happy to let them get on with it.
Strathbane was a violent town, and the police were used to having unsolved murders on their books.
Josie begged leave to visit her mother, and Hamish let her go. Flora McSween welcomed her daughter and asked how her “romance” with Hamish was getting on.
Josie said that Hamish had taken her to a local dance, and Flora eagerly begged for details. Not wanting to disappoint her mother, Josie gave a highly embroidered account full of “speaking glances” and “warm clasped hands,” which, to a less woolly-minded romantic than her mother, would have sounded like something out of the pages of a Victorian novel.
But as she talked, Josie’s imagination, fuelled by a generous glass of whisky, began to make her lies become reality. Acute jealousy made her think of Priscilla as a rival, although she did not tell her mother that Hamish had gone off with Priscilla and had not returned until the following day.
Then Flora said, “I’ve been meaning to throw a lot of old stuff out of the attic. It’s been up there for years and years. Some of it’s even your Great-Great Aunt Polly’s belongings. I know they’re a part of family history but I thought some of the old clothes could go to the local dramatic society.”
“I’ll have a look tomorrow,” said Josie.
On the following morning, Josie, nursing a hangover, climbed up to the attic, a small room at the top of the Victorian house which had once been used by a maid. Her mother followed her. “Look at all this stuff,” said Flora. “What I want you to do, pet, is take a look through it and see if there’s anything you want. I phoned the dramatic society and a couple are coming around this afternoon. I’ll leave you to it.”
Josie sat down and gloomily surveyed the jumble piled up around the room. Her mother had already labelled several of the old steamer trunks CLOTHES, PHOTOGRAPHS, and SHOES.
Feeling she could not really be bothered and wondering whether her mother had any Alka-Seltzer in the house, Josie decided to sit as long as she could, nursing her hangover, and then say there was nothing she wanted. She had no interest in family history. There were plenty of photographs downstairs of her late father whom she dimly remembered from her childhood as being an angry violent man, particularly on Friday evenings when he came back from the pub.
Her eyes fell on an old desk in the corner. It had a square wooden box on the top. Josie rose to her feet. Her mother had not said anything about jewellery. But perhaps there might be something valuable in there.
She opened the lid. It was full of old bottles of medicine and pillboxes. She was about to close the lid again when she noticed that one dark green bottle with a stoppered top had fallen on its side. It was labelled LAUDANUM. She lifted it out. It was full. She remembered reading in historical romances that laudanum was tincture of opium. She looked down into the jumble of medicines and found another bottle, also full.
After her failure to drug Hamish, she had vowed she would never, ever do anything so crazy again. But…maybe she would take them. You never knew…
Hamish meanwhile had set out to interview all the women in the case again. He was having a hard time with Cora Baxter, who seemed to think it the height of impertinence that a lowly police sergeant should dare to question a councillor’s wife. Hamish first asked her if she had visited the town hall on the evening Mark Lussie was murdered and then asked her if she had, or if she knew anyone who had, a knowledge of chemistry.
Her formidable bosom heaved. “Are you daring to suggest that I had anything to do with Annie’s murder? I shall report you to your superiors.”
“By all means,” said Hamish, hoping she would do so and that his sergeant’s stripes would be removed along with Josie. “I am simply-”
The door to the living room crashed open and Jamie Baxter strode in. “What’s going on here?”
“Oh, Jamie,” wailed Cora. “This terrible man is accusing me of murder!”
“This is too much, Macbeth,” said Jamie. “Get out of here this minute and don’t ever bother my poor wife again.”
Hamish tried to protest that he was only doing his duty but he was firmly shown the door.
He trudged along to Mrs. McGirty’s. As the frail old lady answered his knock, Hamish realised that she was the last person in the world to make a letter bomb, but maybe she heard useful gossip.
“Come in,” said Mrs. McGirty. “I’ll put the kettle on. Go into the living room and take a seat.”
He was glad to see she had a real fire. He remembered his mother telling him that at one time when the Hydro Electric Board had started up, the Highlands were promised cheap electricity. Fireplaces were blocked up and electric fires placed in front of them: old oil lamps which now would fetch a good bit of money in some auction room were tossed out with the rubbish. The electricity turned out to be expensive but a lot of people kept the electric fires, the house-proud ladies of the Highlands claiming that peat and coal fires caused dust.
The small room was cluttered and cosy, the sofa and armchair being covered in paisley-patterned cotton slipcovers. There was a highland scene above the fireplace, darkened by years of smoke from the coal fire.
Mrs. McGirty came in carrying a laden tray. “Now there’s tea and some of my scones, Mr. Macbeth. Help yourself.”
Hamish did, realising he was hungry. When he had drunk two cups of tea and eaten two scones, in between times talking about the weather, he asked, “Have you heard any gossip in the town about anyone who might have wanted to murder Annie?”
“Too much gossip,” said Mrs. McGirty, shaking her old head. “Quite terrible it is. Who would have thought that Annie Fleming was so bad? Folks have only just started telling me about her.”
“The thing is,” said Hamish, “thon letter bomb would have to have been made by someone with a knowledge of chemistry.”
“Maybe not.” The old lady’s shrewd eyes looked up at him. “You can get all the information on stuff like that off the Internet these days.”
“How do you know?”
“I looked it up myself. I have the computer. That way I keep in touch with the relatives in Canada.”
“But where would anyone get the chemicals?”
“They’re easily come by. Any schoolboy could probably pinch them out of the laboratory at school.”
Hamish stared at her, his cup of tea halfway to his mouth. Sol Queen, the chemistry teacher, was too sane, too old, and too respectable. But what about a schoolboy? Annie had only really been interested in older men, except that she had wound up with Mark Lussie and Percy Stane.
He put his cup down in the saucer. “Did you see Bill Freemont visiting Annie when her parents were out?”
“I saw his van outside and then after a bit I saw him come out of the house and get into it. I never thought one bad thing. I only thought it was nice of her boss to call on her when she was off sick.”
“No one else?”
“Not that I know. But I spend a lot of time on the computer. It’s the great thing for an old body like me.”
“I have so many suspects my head’s in a whirl,” said Hamish. “But there was some phone call from Mark to the town hall before he died.”
“Maybe the girl on the switchboard could help.”
“ Iona Sinclair? I’m afraid not. She gets so many calls asking to be put through to one department or another.”
“I did hear there was a bit of a row over Annie being the Lammas queen two yea
rs running. Iona was bitter, folk are saying. But, och, it is terrible in the town with everyone hinting that it could be this one or that one.”
“I forgot to ask Iona,” said Hamish, “if there is someone who relieves her at the switchboard. I mean, what happens when she goes for lunch?”
“The town hall shuts between one and two.”
“But say she wanted to go to the ladies’ room?”
“You’ll just need to ask.”
* * *
When Hamish left her, he looked at his watch. It was just before one o’clock. He sped off to the town hall and parked outside.
He waited, hoping that Iona would emerge and not settle for sandwiches at her desk. When he saw her come out, he jumped down from the Land Rover and went to meet her.
“ Iona! I would like to be having a wee word with you. What about lunch?”
“Wouldn’t mind. I usually go to Jeannie’s in the High Street.” Jeannie’s was a café run by a bad-tempered matron but popular because of the good quality of the snacks she served.
They both ordered Welsh rarebit and a pot of tea. “Now, Iona,” began Hamish, “what happens when you have to leave the switchboard? Who relieves you?”
“Anyone who happens to be passing. Or I phone someone like, say, Jessie Cormack and ask her if she would mind taking over while I have a pee.”
“So,” said Hamish, “let’s go back to the day Mark Lussie was murdered. Just before you closed for the evening, did anyone take over for you?”
She wrinkled her brow. Then her face cleared. “Oh, I mind fine. I was bursting and Mrs. Baxter was just coming out of her husband’s office. So I called to her and asked if Jessie was very busy because I had to go to the loo and herself says, ‘Run along. I’ll do the board for you.’ ”
“You’re sure about that?”
“ ’Course I’m sure. I’m hardly likely to forget Mrs. High and Mighty stooping to help someone like me out.”
“But you didnae say anything about this when I first questioned you.”
“You were asking me about calls I put through and it fair flustered me and I forgot about Mrs. Baxter.”
“I heard you were bitter about Annie being made Lammas queen two years running,” said Hamish.
“I was right furious. I went around swearing I’d kill the conniving bitch.” Iona turned red. “I didn’t, mind. I wouldn’t. The provost, Mr. Tarry, got to hear about my complaints and he sent for me and told me if I wanted to keep my job, I’d better shut up. He said the council had voted unanimously for Annie. Annie flirted with anything in trousers. She probably went out of her way to make sure she’d be elected.”
Hamish drove her back to the town hall and then braced himself to go and confront Cora again. To his relief, he saw that her husband’s car was no longer outside the house.
The curtain twitched as he walked up the front path and rang the bell.
Cora answered the door, her well-upholstered bosom heaving with outrage. “You dare to come here again!”
“Now, now,” said Hamish soothingly. “We may haff got off on the wrong foot. I haff chust learned that on the day Mark Lussie was murdered, you took over the switchboard for a wee while. I need to ask you about that for, you see, the last call Mark Lussie made was to the town hall.”
She stared at him with those eyes of hers which were like Scottish pebbles and then said abruptly, “You’d better come in.”
Hamish followed her back into the living room and removed his cap.
“Sit down,” she barked.
Hamish sat down on a leather armchair, which welcomed him with the usual rude sound.
“Can you remember any calls?” he asked.
“Nothing in particular.”
“It would have come from someone who sounded like Mark-a young person.”
“There was a call to be put through to town planning-that was a woman-and one for health and safety-that was a man, not young-and one for waste disposal. The one for waste disposal sounded young. That’s all I can remember.”
Hamish took out his notebook and checked it. “Waste disposal. That would be Percy Stane.”
“Yes, that’s him.”
“Did any of the callers ask for anyone by name?”
“No, just the department.”
“Not many people would know how to operate an old-fashioned switchboard like the one at the town hall.”
“I was a secretary at the town hall before I married my husband. I used to fill in on the switchboard. If you have no more questions, I may warn you,” she said as Hamish headed for the door, “that my husband has already reported you to Superintendent Daviot.”
“Oh, good,” said Hamish, and he left her staring after him.
Hamish went to the town hall and walked into Percy Stane’s office. Percy looked up at him, his eyes wide with fear like a trapped animal’s.
“I’ve told you all I know,” he blurted out.
“There might be something you have forgotten,” said Hamish. “Look, try to remember the day Mark Lussie died. Did you get a phone call?”
“I didn’t know him all that well. I wouldn’t know his voice.”
Percy wrinkled his brow in thought. Then his face cleared. “There was the one call. When I said, ‘Waste Disposal,’ the voice said, ‘Wrong department. Put me back to the switchboard.’ ”
“Man or woman?”
“A man. Maybe young. He didn’t say which department he really wanted.”
“Keep thinking about it and if you remember anything at all, here’s my card. Give me a call. Do you know if the provost is in his office?”
“He’ll be at the bank.”
Hamish walked out to the main street and along to the West Highland Bank where Gareth Tarry, the provost, was the manager.
He was told to wait. Hamish waited and waited. He wondered whether the provost was really busy or simply one of those irritating people who like to show off their authority.
At last, he was ushered in. “I’m very busy, Sergeant,” he said, “and I don’t see how I can be of any help to you.”
“How come Annie Fleming was elected Lammas queen two years running?”
“It was put to a vote. A secret ballot. There are ten councillors and all of them voted for Annie.”
“That’s odd, considering some of them hae daughters of their own.”
“I can prove it! I still have the ballot papers.”
“Where?” asked Hamish. “At the town hall?”
“No, in my safe here. Wait a moment. I just shoved the box in there. I’m more here than at the town hall and so I keep a lot of official stuff in the safe.”
He rose, went to a large safe in a corner of his office, and fiddled with the combination. He bent down and scrabbled about on the inside, finally lifting out a square wooden box with a slot in the top. “I need the key,” he muttered. He went to his desk and searched through the drawers, finally producing a small brass key.
He placed the box on his desk and unlocked it. “See for yourself.”
Hamish took out several of the folded ballot papers and opened them. His eyebrows rose up to his hairline in surprise. “These are all typed! That’s odd. You’d think they’d just scribble a name. Why go to the bother of typing it? Did you vote?”
“No, I never vote unless a casting vote is needed.”
“Weren’t the councillors surprised when you said the vote was unanimous?”
“I simply told them that Annie had been voted for.”
“Who’s the nearest councillor to here?”
“There’s Garry Herriot. He runs the ironmonger.”
Garry Herriot was a small, prim man dressed in a brown overall. He had very pale grey eyes.
“Mr. Herriot,” Hamish began, “can you tell me who you voted for to be Lammas queen last year?”
“I voted for Iona, the lassie on the switchboard.”
“Would it surprise you to learn that all ten votes were for Annie Fleming?”
“Yes, it would. I happen to know of two others who voted for Iona. What happened?”
“One of you got into that ballot box and put in a list of typed votes for Annie. Did you type yours?”
“No, I just wrote Iona ’s name on the slip of paper and popped it in the box. But the box was on the provost’s desk and it was locked.”
“Did the provost count out the votes in front of you all?”
“No, he just said Annie had been voted again. We all assumed she’d got the majority of votes.”
“The provost can’t be in the town hall all the time. He must spend most of the day at the bank.”
“His secretary, Alice Menzies, handles all the phone calls and things like that.”
Hamish went back to the town hall and got directions to Alice Menzies’s room. He wondered whether Alice would turn out to be some other highland beauty whose nose had been put out of joint by Annie. But she turned out to be a middle-aged woman in a tweed suit and wearing thick spectacles. Hamish told her about the ballot papers.
“That’s awful,” she said. “But you can stop looking for the culprit. I know who did it.”
At last, thought Hamish.
“It was Annie herself,” said Alice. “She came up here just before the ballots were due to be counted. She said she had an appointment with Mr. Tarry. I told her to go along to the bank but she said the provost had told her to wait in the town hall office. I let her in. She was only there a short time and then she came out and said she must have made a mistake.”
“Where is the key to the ballot box kept? I know the provost locked it up in the safe in the bank.”
“You’ll never believe this. The key was kept in a top drawer of his desk. Annie could have taken it out and unlocked the box.”
“And didn’t you think to report this when the vote was announced?”
She shrugged. “I was so used to all the men drooling over Annie, I didn’t really bother about it.”
“Why did Mr. Tarry take the ballot box to the bank?”
