Death of a Nag

by M C Beaton

  —Douglas William Jerrold

  Hamish, who had been studying his notes, looked up curiously as Alice Brett was ushered in. He had expected a legal secretary to turn out to be somewhat like Doris Harris in appearance, prim and neat. But Alice Brett was fleshy. She had a loose, floppy bosom and rather big loose arms, as if they had once been muscled and the muscle had gone into flab. Her heavily painted mouth was very thick and full, and she wore an orange lipstick which had the "wet" look, so that it was hard to look anywhere else but at that huge glistening mouth. Her eyes were large and rather fixed. She was wearing a short-sleeved summer dress. She had large plump feet in white high-heeled shoes.

  Clay switched on the tape again. Deacon consulted some notes and then began. "Mrs. Brett, you say you came up here after the murder, and yet you checked out on holiday the week before. You will be interested to know that your neighbour, Mrs. Dibb, now stands by her original story and has made a statement. She said you told her a week before the murder of Mr. Harris that you had received a letter saying that your husband was cheating on you, and that you were going up to Scotland. Was that letter from Harris?"

  "I want a lawyer," said Mrs. Brett.

  "You'll get one. But try to co-operate. If you did not murder Mr. Harris, then you have nothing to fear."

  Hamish spoke suddenly, "The thing that is bothering me," he said, "was that there was hardly time for Harris to have written to Mrs. Brett here. We had all been here only a few days when the murder took place."

  Deacon looked at him in surprise. Then he glared at Alice Brett. "Out wi' it. Who told you about June?"

  "I'm saying nothing until a lawyer gets here." Alice folded her baggy arms over her baggy bosom and faced them mutinously.

  And then Hamish Macbeth had one of his flashes of Highland insight.

  "I know who wrote to you," he said.

  "How? Who?" asked Deacon.

  "It was June," said Hamish flatly. He looked straight at Alice Brett. "June wrote to you, didn't she?"

  She stared back and then sneered, "Oh, well, if the silly trollop has told you, there's no point in me denying it. The bitch. Let my man go and all that crap."

  "So why didn't you approach them when you came up here?" asked Hamish. "You weren't staying in Skag. I'm sure of that."

  "I stayed a bit away," she said sulkily. "I stayed in Forres. I drove over one day. You were all on the beach. It was the children. I can't have any. It made me sick. But I suddenly didn't want him anymore. I went to tell him so. Of course, June and the children weren't anywhere around. You know how I got my revenge? Not by murdering Harris. Why should I? I didn't know the man. I got my revenge by saying he could have had a divorce any time he wanted, and then I saw the look on his face. He was mad with fury, thinking of all the wasted years."

  "And you let him believe that you had found out about him and June through the newspapers?"

  "I didn't tell him who had written to me. It didn't seem important anymore."

  A possessive, ugly leech of a woman, and with another flash of insight he realized why such a woman would be prepared to let a husband go.

  "You didn't much care one way or the other," said Hamish, "you having a new man of your own."

  "I'll kill that Dibb woman," she shouted. "Some friend. Can't she keep her bloody mouth shut?"

  "Who is this man?" asked Deacon.

  Her eyes flashed hatred in the direction of Hamish Macbeth.

  "A Mr. John Trant. He lives in Greys. He's a builder."

  Deacon settled down then to take her over all her movements since receiving the letter from June. She no longer said she needed a lawyer but answered in a dull, flat voice.

  When they had finished with her and she had left the room, Deacon turned on Hamish. "You might have told me all you knew about her, Macbeth," he said. "I've got no time for ye if you're going to be secretive."

  "I didn't know," said Hamish mildly. "It just came to me. Harris wouldn't know her address, and the only person I could think of who might have an interest in letting Alice know the truth was June. Also, about the other man, a creature like Alice Brett wouldn't have even considered letting Dermott have his freedom unless she had another man lined up."

  "It could be," said Deacon slowly, "that Brett thought Harris had written the letter."

  "But Alice arrived after the murder," Clay pointed out.

  "Unless, of course," said Hamish, "Alice met Dermott secretly before the murder. Perhaps her visit to the boarding-house was to finalize things."

  "We'd better have June and Dermott Brett in again." Deacon rose, put his head round the door and shouted at the desk sergeant to get someone to collect them.

  "Is that how you go about cases?" he asked Hamish. "Guesswork? That can be a dangerous thing. Whit if you were wrong?"

  "Then all she had to do was deny it. Seemed worth a try."

  "Aye, that's all very well, but me, I prefer solid police work and hard evidence. Just look how you came acropper over the wrong body over at Drum."

  "But I found out the murderer," protested Hamish. "Look, I've been meaning to ask you. For the next few days, is there a possibility of a room in the police house at Dungarton? I don't want to go on staying at that boarding-house."

  "Why?" demanded Clay. "You can watch them."

  "I find it a bit o' a strain," said Hamish.

  "You're a policeman, dammit."

  "But a policeman usually doesn't hae to live with the suspects."

  "You stay where you are, laddie," said Deacon. "Clay, give Maggie a shout and get her to make some tea and sandwiches. We'll hae a wee bit o' something while we're waiting."

  Poor Maggie, thought Hamish. If Deacon isn't careful, she'll be putting in a complaint about him.

  When the tea and sandwiches arrived, Hamish ate without really tasting anything, his mind on the people back at the boarding-house. He was not looking forward to the arrival of Dermott and June. He had hated being present at the interviewing of Andrew and Doris. He liked them. Why couldn't it be Cheryl or Tracey? he thought. But whoever this murderer was, it was someone cool and unemotional, or someone driven to the edge by fear. To walk into the boat-shed and kill Jamie MacPherson just like that did not seem like a premeditated crime any more than the death of Harris did. A murderer who planned things would have waited until a quieter time of the day, not marched in boldly in broad daylight, when anyone could have seen him or her. His thoughts began to wander. It could be a murderess rather than a murderer. Or was that not going to be used any more in these politically correct days? Would it soon become murderperson? Amazing that political correctness should start in a democratic society like America. One always thought of it as being the curse of a totalitarian society and coming from the top, not the bottom. Then there was therapyspeak or psychobabble to cover a multitude of emotions. People said, for example, "I am chemically dependent on so-and-so, I am obsessed, I am emotionally dependent, I have been taken hostage." The old-fashioned words wouldn't do anymore. To go down to the basement of one's emotions, switch on the light, stare the monster in the face and say "I am in love" was not on, because that meant giving up control, that meant being vulnerable. Had he really been in love with Priscilla? His mind shied away from the thought with all the fright of the people he had been mentally damning and he was relieved when Dermott and June were ushered in.

  "Who's looking after the children?" asked Hamish and got a glare from Deacon for not knowing his place.

  "Miss Gunnery," said June.

  The couple sat down uneasily and faced Deacon.

  "Now," said Deacon, "we'll start with you, Mrs. Brett. Do you mind if I call you June? I get confused with the real Mrs. Brett."

  "Call me what you like," said June wearily.

  "Well, June, why didn't you tell us you had written to Mrs. Brett, telling her of your affair with Dermott here?"

  June turned a muddy colour and Dermott stared at her as if he couldn't believe his ears. "You WHAT?" he shouted at her.
r />   "Quietly now," admonished Deacon. "I am speaking to June, not you, Dermott. June?"

  "I meant to tell you," she said, speaking to Dermott. "I couldn't take it any longer. Eight years now we've been together. I'm sick of having you part-time. Heather was beginning to ask questions about why you had to be away so much, why you always missed Christmas, when you couldn't be working, and things like that. I thought that one day she'd find out she was a bastard and I couldn't bear that. You kept saying that Alice would never give you a divorce, but I thought she might if she knew about the children. Yes, I wrote to her. I'm not sorry. It worked out fine."

  "Except that Harris got killed and now MacPherson," interposed Clay.

  "That was nothing to do with me."

  "Wait a bit, wait a bit," said Dermott, shaking his head as if to clear it. "Why didn't you tell me about writing to Alice?"

  "Because it would have been the same old thing," said June. "Look at the way you buckled and were prepared to pay that rat Rogers to keep his mouth shut."

  "But you should never have done such a thing. You don't know what you've done, woman!"

  June's face turned the same horrible colour as Dermott's. "What have I done?" she screamed at him. And then, in a low voice, she repeated wretchedly, "Oh, what have I done?"

  "Yes, what has she done?" Deacon's voice was brutal. "Do you mean murdering Harris was a waste of time, Dermott Brett?"

  "No," said Dermott. "I never touched him. Never! I had that row with him. He was threatening to tell Alice. I was so upset, I didn't stop to think that he couldn't possibly have the address. They don't have a visitors' book at the boarding-house."

  "Did Rogers know your home address?" asked Hamish.

  "No." Dermott quietened. "No. June made the booking."

  "So why wass it that you told the police and us that you didn't know the boarding-house wass under the new management?"

  "I lied about a few little things," said Dermott wearily. "I was terrified you would suspect me because I'd had that row with Harris."

  "So let's begin at the beginning," said Deacon. Patiently he took them through everything all over again. When he had finished, Hamish said, "Heather says she saw Doris on the beach where Doris says she was. June, how was it you let a seven-year-old wander off on her own?"

  June looked puzzled. "It's not like Heather to leave the younger ones, but I fell asleep and Heather was collecting shells. And she was, you know. She carried them home in that pail she uses for making sand-castles."

  Maggie put her head around the door. "A word with you, sir."

  Deacon went out. He was back in a few minutes and sat down heavily. "More problems," he said. "That will be all," he added to Dermott and June. The couple got up and went out, but Hamish noticed that Dermott did not take June's arm or hand the way he usually did.

  "What's up?" asked Clay. "Not another murder?"

  Deacon shook his head. "Cheryl's been arrested. She and Tracey were in the pub and got drunk. Some local lads started taking the piss out of them and Cheryl smashed her pint glass on the bar and then tried to take it across the face of one of the lads. Would have done it too if Tracey hadn't held her back."

  Violence, thought Hamish. We've been looking for someone capable of a sudden attack of violence and forgetting Cheryl is the one with a proven record. We've been looking for a motive. What was it he had said to Miss Gunnery? Something about a motiveless murder being the most difficult to solve. These had not been intelligent murders. They had been the result of rage, rage and fear; fear in the case of MacPherson, if he had been blackmailing anybody.

  Deacon was called out again. Again they waited. When he came back, he said, "One of the locals remembers that MacPherson always had a big pair of kitchen scissors on his desk. We haven't found a trace of them. If the murderer used the scissors as a weapon and threw them in the river, they could be somewhere down there sunk in the sand. We've searched all around below the jetty, but they could have been tossed in further up. I'll tell you another thing: anything that's tossed in that river can sink down below the sand and be buried. I don't know if we'll ever find them."

  "Is Cheryl being brought in here?" asked Hamish.

  "No, she'll stay in the cells until she sobers up. Why don't you get back to that boarding-house, Macbeth, and see what you can sniff out?"

  That "sniff out" was unfortunate because it gave Hamish a sudden and vivid picture of Towser. He got to his feet, nodded to Deacon and Clay, and went out. Instead of driving off, he left his Land Rover where it was and walked down to the harbour. The tide was in, sucking at the wooden piles of the jetty, making wet clumps of seaweed rise and fall like the hair on the dead Bob Harris's head. There were long trails of rain out to sea, dragging across the stormy water as if pulled by an unseen hand. The air was full of wind and salt and motion. Behind him, a policeman he did not know stood on guard outside the boat-shed. A little knot of tourists stared hungrily at the boat-shed, as if a vicarious thrill were as much a legitimate part of the holiday as the rides at the fairground.

  Hamish was reluctant to go back to the boarding-house, reluctant to face the others. He wished with all his heart that the case was solved and he could return to Lochdubh. How could he ever have taken such a dislike to his home village? He could always ask to leave Skag. He was officially on holiday. But the short happy time he had spent with the others at the boarding-house before the murders had given him a queer sort of loyalty towards them.

  With a little sigh, he turned and walked back to the police station, climbed into the Land Rover and drove to the boarding-house.

  He was met in the hall by a stout middle-aged lady who said, "I am Mrs. Rogers's sister, Mrs. Aston. Poor Liz has gone to lie down. She can't cope here. You must be Mr. Macbeth. Tea is just about to be served, if you will step into the dining-room."

  Wondering, Hamish went in and joined Miss Gunnery. "I had thought of asking you out for dinner tonight," he said. "But do you think this Mrs. Aston is going to be any better?"

  "Let's see," said Miss Gunnery. "She seems a very civil and polite woman."

  "She seemed to have heard a description of me," said Hamish. "I could have been any other policeman."

  The door opened and the Bretts came in. They avoided looking at Hamish and sat down at their table in silence. Then Andrew and Doris came in, followed by a tearful Tracey. They, too, avoided looking at Hamish.

  Mrs. Aston wheeled in a trolley with the three-tiered cake stands on it and proceeded to put one on each table. "Goodness, this is more like it," exclaimed Miss Gunnery. On the bottom plate were wafer-thin slices of bread and butter, white and brown; on the next plate up, teacakes and scones, golden and fresh-baked; and on the top a selection of scrumptious-looking cakes.

  "I wonder what the dish is?" said Hamish. "I smell fish and chips, but to tell the truth, I think I've had enough fish and chips to last me a lifetime."

  The trolley creaked in again. But it was fish and chips made surely by the hand of an angel: haddock fillets in crisp golden batter and real chips, rather than those frozen ones.

  "This is grand!" exclaimed Hamish.

  "And really good tea," said Miss Gunnery. She looked across to where the three small Brett children sat in old-fashioned, well-behaved silence. "There's a showing of The Jungle Book on in the cinema at Dungarton. It's at seven-thirty this evening. We could all just make it after tea, and it might take your children's minds off the troubles we are going through, Mrs. Brett."

  "I tell you what," said Hamish directly to the children, "if your parents'll let you stay up late, I'll give you a ride in the police Land Rover."

  Heather's eyes widened. "With the siren on?"

  "I don't think I can manage that," said Hamish, "but we could flash the blue light."

  "Och, let's go," said Tracey. "It's started tae pour wi' rain an' if we sit in this hellish place, we'll all go daft."

  There was a definite thawing of the air in the dining-room. "Might be the very thing," said D
ermott. "But what if they send for any of us to interrogate us again this evening?"

  "They didn't say anything about it," said Hamish. "Let's forget our troubles and eat up and just go."

  "You'll get into trouble with your superiors for fraternizing with the enemy," said Andrew drily.

  "Maybe Hamish hopes that if he stays close to us, we'll reveal something useful," put in Doris in a flat little voice. There was an uneasy silence.

  "No, no," said Hamish. "I need to get my mind off the case as much as the lot of you. Come on. Let's give the kids a bit o' fun."

  And so Maggie Donald, arriving just after tea at the boarding-house to see if she could entice Hamish out to dinner, found him lifting the Brett children into the Land Rover. He told her rather curtly where they were going but did not issue any invitation. Maggie stood and watched as the cars drove off, feeling strangely abandoned and yet wondering crossly at the same time why Hamish Macbeth, a policeman, should want to spend the evening with a group of people among whom was probably a murderer.

  The film was a great success. Hamish, who hadn't seen it before, said to Miss Gunnery that it was just about his intellectual level. Hamish drove the Brett children home and on an empty stretch of road switched on the flashing blue light and the police siren.

  Miss Gunnery, following behind, driving Tracey, said, "He is a very unusual policeman, our Hamish."

  Tracey shivered. "They're all pigs."

  "There is nothing to fear from the police if you keep on the right side of the law," said Miss Gunnery. "Why don't you break free of company like Cheryl, Tracey, and make a new life for yourself?"

  Tracey, instead of protesting, sat in silence. Then she said, "She belongs to ma sort o' life. My faither's in prison."

  "There comes a time, Tracey," said Miss Gunnery, "when you must break free of your family if you have had an unfortunate upbringing, which I believe you have experienced."

  Tracey gave a harsh laugh. "You know, sometimes when Ah'm comin' back frae the jiggin' wi' Cheryl, and we've had a few drinks and we're laughing and screeching, we see the respectable lassies standing at the bus stop, and they draw back a wee bit as we pass and turn their faces away. Cheryl usually gives them a mouthful, but me ..." She sighed. "There's a part o' me would like fine tae be one o' them."