Death of a Valentine

by M C Beaton

  “Me? Not on your life,” he said.

  But privately he thought that Cora had been in the grip of an obsession almost as mad as that of her husband. Respectability and her position as a councillor’s wife was her life and the very air she breathed.

  Hamish found Josie good company in the weeks that followed. Josie cunningly knew instinctively that if she betrayed any romantic feelings towards Hamish, then he would back off. He even took her out for dinner a couple of times. The villagers thought they were watching a budding romance, and hadn’t Mrs. Wellington said she was sure there would soon be a wedding?

  Meanwhile, Josie laid her plans. She had paid over one thousand pounds to a shady doctor in Strathbane to give her a certificate saying she was pregnant.

  Just as the snows were beginning to melt and a balmy wind was bringing the first hint of spring, she called at the police station.

  “Hamish, I’m pregnant,” she said.

  Chapter Eleven

  *

  Their tricks and craft hae put me daft,

  They’ve ta’en me in, an’ a’ that

  – Robert Burns

  The news of Hamish’s Macbeth’s engagement to Josie McSween was greeted with delight in the village of Lochdubh. They were such a suitable couple. She was a pretty wee lassie and a policewoman, too.

  Only Angela Brodie was worried. One evening, shortly after the announcement of Hamish’s engagement, her husband confided in her that Hamish had come to him one morning, demanding a drug test, but that the forensic lab had stated that he was clear.

  She knew Hamish better than most. Although he smiled on Josie and escorted her about, Angela sensed a bleakness in him. She didn’t like Josie. She thought there was something sly about her.

  Also, Hamish, who usually dropped in for a chat, had been avoiding her. She found him one morning, leaning on the wall overlooking the loch, with his animals at his heels.

  “Hamish!” she hailed him. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you. So you’re finally going to be married? Congratulations.”

  “That iss verra kind of you, Angela.” His eyes were flat and guarded. “I’d had best be getting along to the station.”

  “Wait a moment. Are you happy?”

  “Of course,” said Hamish, and he strode off.

  Angela was walking back home when she met Mrs. Wellington. “Isn’t it exciting?” said the minister’s wife. “I’ve come to think of Josie as my own daughter.”

  “I don’t think Hamish is very happy,” said Angela.

  “It doesn’t matter if he’s happy or not. He got the girl preg…” Mrs. Wellington actually blushed.

  “Do you mean Josie’s pregnant?”

  “Don’t tell a soul. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “I don’t think Josie is my husband’s patient.”

  “Well, no. It would spoil the occasion if people thought it was a shotgun wedding.”

  “Which doctor did she go to?”

  “I remember she said it was a Dr. Cameron in Strathbane.”

  Angela phoned the television studios in Glasgow and asked to speak to Elspeth Grant, saying she was a friend. She was told Miss Grant was broadcasting but if she left her name and number, Miss Grant would phone her back.

  Worried that her husband might drop in, find out what she was doing, and accuse her of interfering, Angela paced nervously up and down. At last the phone rang and, with relief, she heard Elspeth’s voice on the line.

  “It’s about Hamish,” said Angela. “Have you heard he’s to be married?”

  “Yes, I got an invitation to the wedding.”

  “Elspeth, something is wrong. He is not happy. Josie is supposed to be pregnant. Could she be tricking him? Oh, Elspeth, I do wish you would come up here and find out for sure.”

  “Wait a minute. Are they living together?”

  “No, Josie is at the manse with Mrs. Wellington. I assumed it was because people here are a bit old-fashioned.”

  “But he is seen out with her?”

  “Yes, I saw them at the Italian restaurant just the other day. Hamish was quiet and polite. Josie chattered on and on. But there’s more. Hamish went to my husband some time ago claiming he had been drugged and got samples and rushed off to the forensic lab in Strathbane with them. The lab said he was clear.”

  “I remember Lesley at the lab. She was keen on Hamish and I always think she upped and married her boss just to show him. Look, I’ll get some leave of absence and get up there. But Hamish wouldn’t fall for a fake pregnancy, if that’s what it is. Doesn’t she go to Dr. Brodie?”

  “No, she goes to a Dr. Cameron in Strathbane.”

  “I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

  Several times, Josie had been on the point of calling the whole thing off. She had hoped to get into bed with Hamish long before the wedding and therefore be able, possibly, to become genuinely pregnant. But Hamish had said that he would marry her and look after her, but he did not want to have sex with her. Josie had wept and pleaded but Hamish was adamant.

  Her mother had arrived to stay at the manse. Flora McSween was thrilled to bits. Because Josie’s father was dead, she was to be given away by her Uncle Bob. The wedding gown was a miracle of white satin and pearls.

  Flora did not suspect anything wrong. Josie told her often how much in love she and Hamish were. Any odd bouts of weeping on her daughter’s part, Flora put down to wedding nerves. She mostly lived in paperback romances and kept as much of the real world at bay as she could.

  Hamish was loyal to Josie in that he did not confide in anyone how miserable he was at the prospect of being married to her. Never before had his police station home and his bachelor life looked so dear. There was only a trickle of work to keep him busy, although he travelled over his large beat as much as he could.

  Strathbane, on the other hand, was in the grip of drug wars. Jimmy had agreed to be his best man but had not been near the police station and so had no inkling that Hamish was miserable at the prospect of the wedding. And for the villagers, Hamish put on a good front, smiling affectionately at Josie when they were out together, thanking people for their wedding presents, and saying, yes, he hoped the sun would shine on the important day.

  * * *

  Angela was feeling frantic. She had phoned Elspeth again, and Elspeth said that she was in difficulties trying to get away but would be there as soon as she could.

  So it was a week before the wedding when Elspeth at last drove north and booked into the Tommel Castle Hotel. She dumped her bags in her room and went straight to the police station. There was no reply to her knock. She searched around until she found the spare key under the doormat and let herself in.

  Elspeth studied the papers on his desk and found a map with a route marked in red. Hamish must be out on his beat. She picked up the map and decided to see if she could find him somewhere on the road. It would be better if she could ask him questions away from the village.

  Hamish thought he would have felt less miserable if the weather had not been so glorious. Misery on a sunny day always seemed intensified. He had given up calling on people on his beat, feeling that he could not bear any more congratulations.

  He parked on a hill above Braikie and tried to cheer himself up by thinking of the son or daughter he might have. But Josie had supplied him with warning pamphlets about how family pets could become jealous of a baby and about how they could cause dangerous allergies. He had shut her up by retorting that if that were the case, they would need to live separately.

  Josie had handed in her notice. He stifled a groan. She would be there with him, night and day. How could he have been so stupid? He didn’t usually drink much-only the odd glass of whisky-but he had drunk more than he usually did at that wedding.

  They were going to Porto Vecchio in Corsica for their honeymoon. That was Josie’s idea. Hamish had reluctantly agreed. Flora was paying for the wedding so he felt that he was obliged to pay for a honeymoon.

  He got o
ut of the Land Rover and let Sonsie and Lugs out as well. The mountains behind him soared up to a perfectly cloudless blue sky; in front of him the sea sparkled in the sunshine with myriad lights. The clean air smelled of thyme and peat smoke, wafting up from the chimneys of the town below him. Hamish gave a superstitious shiver. He suddenly felt as if he were seeing such a view for the last time.

  A rifle bullet smacked into his chest. He caught a glimpse of Cora Baxter rising from the heather and hurrying off down the brae before he collapsed to the ground and blackness settled on him.

  Elspeth drove through Braikie and out on the north road. Something off to her right caught her attention. She stopped and saw the police Land Rover up on the hill. She could just make out a uniformed figure lying beside it.

  She ran up the hill, calling out, “Wake up, Hamish! It’s me, Elspeth!”

  But when she reached him and saw the dark stain of blood on his regulation jersey, she let out a wail of despair. Sonsie and Lugs were guarding the body. She took out her phone and shouted down it for help from the emergency services. Then she knelt down in the heather beside him, feeling for a pulse. There was one, but it was faint.

  She pressed a handkerchief to the wound and whispered, “Oh, Hamish.”

  His eyes flickered open. He said in a whisper, “Cora Baxter,” and then lapsed into unconsciousness again.

  It seemed an age before she heard the whirring blades of a helicopter overhead and the siren of an ambulance coming out from the town.

  The ambulance came bumping up the hill over the heather and the helicopter landed.

  “He’s been shot!” said Elspeth to the paramedics. “Cora Baxter did it.”

  “It’s bad,” said the leading paramedic. “The helicopter had better take him down to the Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.”

  “I’m going with him,” said Elspeth. An oxygen mask was placed on Hamish’s face. Elspeth climbed abroad the helicopter and sat beside Hamish, praying as she had never prayed before.

  The news that Hamish Macbeth was in intensive care hit the village of Lochdubh like a bombshell. The whole village including Josie would have descended on Inverness had not Dr. Brodie informed them all that Hamish was not to be allowed any visitors.

  Then further news came in that Cora Baxter had been arrested for the attempted murder of Hamish.

  Josie fretted and worried. The wedding was postponed. If Hamish survived, he would expect her to be showing signs of pregnancy by the time he got out of hospital. She had been dieting so as to be slim on her wedding day. She decided the best thing would be to put on weight.

  Because Elspeth had done such a dramatic piece on television, she was told to take as much time up in Inverness as she wanted. She was sitting in the waiting room when Jimmy Anderson arrived.

  “What’s the news?” he asked.

  Tears rolled down Elspeth’s cheeks. “It’s still bad. They got the bullet out. He lost a lot of blood. But the bullet seems to have missed any vital organs and gone right through the shoulder. Why did that damn woman do such a thing?”

  “These small towns,” mourned Jimmy. “In a big city, to be a councillor’s wife is no great shakes. But her position in the community had been everything to her. She must be mad. She knew what her husband had done and kept quiet about it.”

  The surgeon came into the waiting room and Elspeth jumped to her feet. “Any news?”

  “He’s stabilised but still unconscious. He should be coming out of it. I’ve seen something like this before but only with attempted suicides when they don’t want to be rescued.”

  “I’ve got to talk to him,” said Elspeth.

  “I can’t see it’ll do any harm and it might do some good.”

  “Wait for me, Jimmy,” said Elspeth. As they walked along the corridors towards Hamish’s room, Elspeth whispered, “Don’t tell anyone. But I think he has been conned into getting married. I’ve no proof. Just don’t let his fiancée see him.”

  The surgeon was very impressed to be talking to such a famous Scottish celebrity.

  “If he recovers, I’ll see,” he said.

  Elspeth went into Hamish’s room and sat down by the bed. “I’ll give you ten minutes,” said the surgeon.

  Taking Hamish’s hand in a firm clasp, Elspeth said, “It’s me…Elspeth. Wake up, Hamish. What would Lochdubh do without you? Listen! Do you remember the time we went poaching up on the colonel’s estate and caught that big salmon and the water bailiff nearly caught us? It was a grand day. How we laughed! And we poached that salmon for dinner. There are good times still to come.”

  Hamish lay as still as death.

  “Oh, wake up, you silly cowardly bastard!” shouted Elspeth.

  A doctor came hurrying in. “You are not to shout at the patient. I must ask you to leave.”

  “Elspeth,” came a faint croak from the bed.

  “Oh, Hamish,” said Elspeth. “Welcome back.”

  The next day when Elspeth called again, it was to find Josie by the bed, holding Hamish’s hand. The surgeon had felt he could hardly refuse Hamish’s fiancée a visit.

  “He’s making a grand recovery,” said Josie, “so the wedding will be going ahead quite soon.”

  “Are you sure, Hamish?” asked Elspeth.

  “Of course,” he said blandly. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “I think Hamish and I would like some time together,” said Josie.

  Elspeth looked enquiringly at Hamish and he gave a brief nod.

  Elspeth went back to the offices of the Highland Times in Lochdubh.

  “Come back to work for us?” asked Matthew Campbell, the editor.

  “No, I just wanted to borrow one of your computers and go through the local stories.”

  “Help yourself. Everything’s on the computer now. All the cuttings are down in the basement.”

  Elspeth sat down at the computer, switched it on, and typed in “Dr. Cameron Strathbane.”

  No results.

  Elspeth found a copy of the Highlands and Islands telephone directory and looked up Dr. Cameron. There was the name and address. She wrote the address down and set off for Strathbane.

  The doctor’s surgery was down near the docks in a far-from-salubrious neighbourhood. Even the seagulls looked dirty. Thin, white-faced youths lurked outside.

  Elspeth had donned a simple disguise in the car: a woollen hat pulled down over her hair, glasses with clear lenses, and old clothes from her thrift-shop shopping days.

  She sat in her car and wondered what to tell the doctor was wrong with her. Then she thought-but what good would it do? She took out her phone and called Jimmy, glad she had kept his mobile phone number form the old days when she used to work for the Highland Times.

  “Elspeth!” said Jimmy. “What’s the news about Hamish?”

  “Recovering rapidly. Jimmy, have you heard anything about a Dr. Cameron in Strathbane?”

  “Why?”

  “Just passing the time up here looking for stories.”

  “I thought you grand presenters had reporters and researchers to do the work for you.”

  “Indulge me, Jimmy.”

  “It’s last year’s story. Cameron was up before the sheriff on a charge o’ selling methadone to druggies. He got off because the laddie who shopped him disappeared.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But why…?”

  “I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.”

  Elspeth thought hard. Before she tackled Cameron, she desperately wanted to know if the results of Hamish’s urine test and blood test were accurate. They could still be in the forensic lab. But how to get them? If Lesley were alerted, she might destroy them.

  She drove slowly to the forensic lab. Outside, she pulled off her glasses and hat.

  Elspeth walked into the lab. Bruce and several of his assistants were working at long benches, strewn with not only the paraphernalia of forensic detection but also half-eaten sandwiches, flasks of coffee, and paperback books.
r />   Bruce recognised her and rushed forward. “It’s Elspeth Grant. What can we do for you?”

  “I’m up here until Hamish gets better,” said Elspeth. “I thought I might fill in the time by doing a feature on your lab. Have you time to show me around?”

  “Sure. Care for a drink?”

  “Not now.”

  Elspeth barely listened as he took her around the lab. At last she said, “And where do you keep the samples? The public have become very interested in cold-case files.”

  He led her into an adjoining room full of freezers. “All in here,” he said.

  “Goodness, you are efficient. Are they all labelled?”

  Bruce gave her a superior smile. “Of course.” He swung open one door. “See?”

  Elspeth stared at the labelled samples. She could not see Hamish’s name. “This is fascinating,” she said. “May I see in the others?”

  Bruce opened door after door. In one of them, in a corner, Elspeth saw two samples labelled HAMISH MACBETH.

  They returned to the lab. “Where has everyone gone?” asked Elspeth.

  “Lunch. Would you like to join me?”

  “I’m a bit pushed for time but I wouldn’t mind a drink. Whisky will do fine, if you have it.”

  He laughed. “This lab runs on it. Wait here. I’ve got a bottle somewhere.”

  When he went off to a side room, Elspeth darted back to the freezers, seized Hamish’s samples, shoved them in her handbag, and hurried back to the lab.

  Bruce came out holding a bottle and two glasses. “I thought you’d have a cameraman with you,” he said, pouring Elspeth a generous measure.

  “I’ll be back with one, but I just wanted to get a feel for the place first. Slainte!”

  She knocked back her drink and said, “I’ve got to run. See you soon, Bruce.”

  Elspeth went to the nearest supermarket, bought a bag of ice, and put the samples in amongst the cubes. There was a forensic lab in Aberdeen. She could only hope they could get a result for her quickly.

  But after a long drive to Aberdeen, she was disappointed to learn that the quickest they could do it would be two weeks. Still, she reflected, Hamish was safe for the moment. She decided to return to Glasgow.