Hamish Macbeth 09 (1993) - Death of a Travelling Man

by M C Beaton

  Hamish then went out again and along to the manse. The minister was alone in his study. “Oh, Hamish,” he said, pushing away the sermon he had been working on, “what brings you here?”

  “It’s those layabouts and their bus.”

  “They are doing no harm, Hamish. The field is not used for anything. It’s a small patch of weedy grass and nettles. Why shouldn’t these young people have the use of it?”

  “There’s something about them I don’t like. Besides, I’m surprised at you, Mr Wellington, for encouraging that kind of layabout.”

  “Now, Hamish,” said the minister mildly, “you know jobs are few and far between.”

  “So why don’t they go somewhere where there are jobs?” demanded Hamish, exasperated.

  The minister chewed the end of his pencil in an abstracted way and then put it down. “There is something appealing about their way of life,” he said. “I sometimes think it would be wonderful to just take off and travel around without any responsibilities whatsoever.”

  “And then who would pay the taxes?”

  “They’re both young,” said Mr Wellington comfortably. “Time enough yet for them to grow up and become responsible.”

  “Sean Gourlay is, I should guess, in his late twenties,” pointed out Hamish, “and the girl has a gutter mouth.”

  “Come now, she was charming to me,”

  “Well, I feel you are being conned,” said Hamish. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

  §

  Hamish and Willie drove up to Tommel Castle Hotel that evening. Hamish climbed down from the Land Rover and sniffed the soft air with pleasure. The light evenings were back. Gone was the long dark tunnel of winter. A faint breeze blew in from the moors, scented with wild thyme. And then one of the castle cars, driven by a young woman, drove up and began to reverse to park next to the police Land Rover.

  “Wait a minute,” shouted Willie, moving purposefully forward. “You’re no’ doing it right. Hard left. Now straighten up! Straighten up. Dear God, lassie, how did you ever pass your test? Don’t you know how to straighten up?”

  Face scarlet with a mixture of fury and mortification, the woman parked at an angle and then climbed out and slammed the car door.

  Willie shook his head. “Women drivers,” he said. “You’ll need to do better than that.”

  She gave him an angry look and walked off into the hotel without a word.

  “Stop being Mr Know-All,” said Hamish. “She’d probably haff done chust fine if you had left her alone. Now forget you’re a cop, and try to be charming.”

  Suddenly nervous, Willie tugged at his tie. “Do I look all right, sir?”

  “Yes, yes, just watch that mouth of yours.”

  Priscilla met them in the entrance hall. “Doris is waiting for us in the bar,” she said. “I told her to get herself a drink and settle down. Some fool of a man was trying to tell her how to park.”

  Hamish groaned inwardly. Doris Ward was a plain young woman with thick glasses and a rather rabbity mouth. She was wearing a blouse and skirt and a tartan waistcoat. She shook hands with Willie and Hamish and then said to Willie, “I should have known you were a bobby.”

  “Sorry about that,” said Willie awkwardly after a nudge in the ribs from Hamish’s elbow. “Forgot I was off duty.”

  “I am sure you have more to do when you are on duty,” said Doris, “than hector women drivers.”

  “You’re English, aren’t you?” said Hamish, desperate to change the conversation. “Thanks, Priscilla, I’ll have any sort of soft drink, but Willie here will have a whisky.”

  “Yes, I’m English,” said Doris. “It’s all very remote up here, isn’t it?”

  Everyone agreed that, yes, it was remote and then there was a heavy silence.

  “Willie here is from the city, Strathbane,” said Hamish at last. “He’s finding it difficult to get used to village ways.”

  “Do you have many friends in the village?” Doris asked Willie politely.

  “No, not in Lochdubh,” said Willie, “but I have a cliche of friends in Strathbane.”

  “Clique,” moaned Hamish under his breath.

  “Mind you,” said Willie, becoming expansive, “I have always wanted to travel. I have an aunt in America I could go and see.”

  “Which part of America?” asked Doris.

  “She lives in a condom in San Francisco.”

  Doris sniggered. “Well, in these AIDS-ridden days, that’s a very safe place to live.”

  Willie looked at her, puzzled, and then his face cleared. “Oh, aye, them condoms have secured cameras and guards and things like that.”

  “Do you want to travel yourself, Doris?” asked Hamish.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Behind her thick glasses, her eyes sent him a flirtatious look. “I might settle for marriage.”

  “Quite right too,” said Willie heartily. “I must say, it is refreshing to meet the woman these days who disnae go in for all this fenimist rubbish.”

  “You mean feminist,” corrected Doris. “If you are going to criticize anything, at least pronounce it properly. Do you mean all women should settle for marriage and babies?”

  “Why not?” demanded Willie, giving her a tolerant smile. “That’s what they’re built for.”

  “You’re out of the Dark Ages,” said Priscilla smoothly. “Dinner should be ready now. Carry your drinks through.”

  “Get her to talk about herself,” hissed Hamish in Willie’s ear as they walked towards the dining room.

  But no sooner were they seated and waiting for the first course to be served than Doris selected a cigarette from a packet and lit up.

  “Do you know you are ruining your lungs?” demanded Willie. “That stuff’s a killer and bad for the skin, too. I can already see it has—”

  “What are we haffing for dinner?” said Hamish, his voice suddenly very loud and strained.

  “Scotch broth to start,” said Priscilla, “and then steak. We’ve got a new chef. We had to get rid of the old one,” she said to Doris, “after that murder here, the one I told you about.”

  Doris gazed at Hamish with admiration. “I heard you’d solved it,” she said. “Tell me all about it.”

  Normally too shy to talk much about himself but frightened of Willie’s gaffes, Hamish told her about it at length, but Priscilla saw to her irritation that Doris was entranced with Hamish and could hardly keep her eyes off him.

  The evening went from bad to worse. Hamish had never before seen Willie drink anything stronger than tea or coffee. The whisky before dinner, the wine at dinner and the brandy afterwards went straight to his head. As soon as Hamish had finished talking, Willie began to talk about his cases, which sounded like a dismal catalogue of public harassment. He seemed a genius at finding out cars with bald tyres, cars with lapsed road tax, cars with various other faults, and every parking offence under the sun. He told what he obviously thought were hilarious stories of people who had become angry with him and what they had said. He laughed so hard, the tears ran down his face. Willie had never before enjoyed himself so much. He felt he was the life and soul of the party.

  Hamish at last propelled a dreamily smiling Willie out to the Land Rover. “You made a fine mess o’ that, Willie,” he said as he drove down to Lochdubh through the heathery darkness. But there was no reply. Willie had fallen asleep.

  What on earth am I going to do with him, thought Hamish wearily. Up on the field behind the manse, lights glowed behind the curtained windows of the bus. He did not like the sight. He did not like the feeling of this alien and dangerous presence in Lochdubh.

  He then reassured himself with the thought that they would soon get bored and move on. The ‘travellers’ like to journey in convoys. It was odd to find two of them on their own.

  He woke Willie outside the police station and ordered him sharply to go in and go to bed. Then he phoned Strathbane. Jimmy Anderson was working overtime and took the call. He had, he said, found nothing on C
heryl and Sean Gourlay from the Glasgow police except to confirm that Sean had taken his driving test in Glasgow recently, hence the new licence.

  “Try Scotland Yard,” urged Hamish. “See what they can come up with.”

  “Whit? They’re overworked down there as it is,” complained Anderson. “Whit’s this Sean done?”

  “Nothing…yet,” said Hamish. “Look, just try them.”

  “Try them yoursel’,” said Anderson. “We’ve got more than enough work here. In my opinion, you’re going a bit ower the top about this Sean character. Wait till he does something.”

  Hamish put down the receiver. He felt he had been a bit silly. There was no need to phone the Yard.

  Besides, what could he have told Scotland Yard anyway? That he had a bad feeling, an intuition?

  Sean would be gone by next week at the latest. And with that comforting thought, Hamish went to bed.

  Chapter Two

  We believe no evil till the evil’s done.

  —Jean de la Fontaine

  But a week later, the bus was still parked up behind the manse. A much cleaner and quieter Cheryl than Hamish had first met wandered about the village or up on the moors. She and Sean were hardly ever to be seen together. They seemed a popular enough pair with the villagers, who were all Highland enough to admire really genuine laziness when they saw it, and Hamish was irritated to overhear one of the village women saying, “Thon Sean Gourlay can beat our Hamish any day when it comes to the idleness.”

  Hamish felt this was particularly unfair, as he had suddenly been beset with a series of small accidents and crimes to deal with. There were frying-pan fires, minor car crashes, lost sheep, lost children, boundary disputes, poachers, and various other things which seemed like dramas at the outset and resolved themselves into minor happenings at the end. Particularly the three reported cases of lost children, who turned out to have been playing truant from school to go fishing. But it still meant a lot of paperwork, and Hamish found that easier to do himself than to spend hours correcting Willie’s prose.

  The weather was still unseasonably mild and all the burns and rivers were foaming with peaty water, like beer, as they rushed down from the hills and mountains fed by melting snow. The air was full of the sound of rushing water. Curlews piped on the moors, sailing over their nests, their long curved beaks giving them a prehistoric look. There were vast skies of milky blue and tremendous sunsets of feathery pink clouds, long bands of them, each cloud as delicate as a brush-stroke.

  Hamish would have put Sean Gourlay out of his mind had he not found him hanging around the hotel gift shop where Priscilla worked.

  Sean gave Hamish his usual mocking look as he strolled out of the shop. Hamish waited until he had gone and then said to Priscilla, “You shouldn’t encourage him.”

  “Why not?” demanded Priscilla coolly. “The first time he bought a silver-and-amethyst ring, and the second, a mohair shawl. He’s a genuine customer, Hamish.”

  “Where does he get the money?” demanded Hamish. “I happen to know the pair o’ them are drawing the dole from the post office.”

  “Maybe he’s got a private income,” said Priscilla. “Look, Hamish, the way you go on and on about layabouts is a joke. You’ve never been a one for hard work yourself.”

  “Aye, but I get my money honestly,” said Hamish, annoyed that she should defend Sean.

  “Hamish, I happen to know that you poach salmon from the river.”

  “Well, only the odd one.”

  “Still, that’s stealing. You’re supposed to stop poaching.”

  “It’s the gangs that dynamite the rivers I’m after,” said Hamish huffily. “I don’t do any harm.”

  “You must have less than ever to do now that you’ve got Willie,” pursued Priscilla.

  “On the contrary, I’ve got double the work. That fellow makes work. That was a grand idea of yours to get him married off, but there isnae a woman in Lochdubh that would have him.”

  “Seen anything of Doris?” asked Priscilla casually.

  “She called at the police station a couple of times, just in a friendly way,” said Hamish defensively.

  The phone on the wall rang shrilly and Priscilla picked it up. “It’s for you,” she said, handing the receiver to Hamish.

  Mrs Wellington’s voice sounded shrill and harsh from the other end. “Hamish, wee Roderick Fairley is trapped on a rock in the Anstey below the bridge and the river’s rising by the minute. Where were you? Why isn’t there anyone at the police station? Why?”

  Hamish dropped the receiver on the counter. “There’s a wee boy stuck on a rock in the Anstey,” he said to Priscilla. “See if you can get Willie.”

  As he ran out, he could hear Mrs Wellington’s voice still squawking from the receiver.

  He drove fast down to the village. He could see a group of men and women hanging over the parapet of the hump-backed bridge over the River Anstey.

  He jumped down from the Land Rover and pushed them aside.

  Roderick Fairley, a chubby five-year-old with hair as flaming red as Hamish’s own, was sitting astride a large rock in the middle of the river, which was foaming about him with a deafening roar.

  “The river’s rising every minute,” said a man at Hamish’s ear. “We’d throw the wee lad a rope but the force o’ that water’d pull his arms frae their sockets.”

  “Get a ladder,” said Hamish. He scrabbled down the side of the bridge and on to the riverbank. The force of the water was tremendous as it cascaded under the bridge and poured around large rocks like the one on which the child was sitting and then hurtled down the falls below. Rainbows rose in the air above the water. Hamish cupped his hands to call to the boy and then realized that Roderick would not be able to hear him above the force of the river.

  “Here’s Jimmy with the ladder,” came a voice, and Hamish twisted about. “Bring it here,” he shouted, “and we’ll lay it from the bank to the rock.”

  More faces peered over the parapet of the bridge. With the help of Jimmy Gordon, a forestry worker, Hamish laid the long ladder from the bank out to the rock. The terrified Roderick sat motionless, his mouth open in a soundless wail of fear.

  “It’s no’ very steady,” shouted Jimmy.

  Hamish asked, “How did he get over there?”

  “His friend says they was jumping frae rock tae rock and then the river rose sudden-like,” said Jimmy.

  More men had come up. “Now,” said Hamish, removing his cap and throwing it down on the bank, “you lot hold the ladder steady.”

  Hamish began to inch his way across. A great silence fell on the watching crowd. The roar of the water seemed to be louder and stronger. He pulled himself along the ladder, shouting as he did so, “Don’t be afraid, Roddy. I’m nearly there.”

  And then the roar of the water became louder, and high above it rose a great keening wail of distress from the women on the bridge and on the banks. Hamish cast one frightened agonized look up the river and saw a wall of water rushing down the mountain towards the bridge and made a lunge and grabbed the child just as the water struck with full force.

  Priscilla arrived just in time to see the crowd scatter from the bridge before the torrent struck, to see Hamish’s red hair disappearing under the roaring flood. Stumbling and cursing and weeping, she made her way down towards the loch, over boulders and roots of shaggy fir trees, over tearing brambles and down to the beach. Her eyes raked the torrential stream and then the waters of the loch. Nothing.

  From all over the village, people were running to the beach.

  Priscilla stopped at the edge of the loch and stood panting. Mrs Fairley, the little boy’s mother, was kneeling by the side of the water, crying out in Gaelic to the ancient gods to give her back her son.

  And then the waters out in the loch broke and Hamish’s head rose above them. He was holding the boy fast. He swam to shore while Priscilla and the others waded out into the loch to meet him.

  “Quick,” panted Hami
sh. “He may be alive yet.”

  The boy lay in his arms as still as death.

  Hamish laid the boy face down on the beach and then began to pump his little arms up and down. Suddenly, water gushed from the boy’s mouth and he set up a wail.

  “He’s alive. Roddy’s alive.” The news spread out from the shoreline. Mrs Fairley fainted dead away. Dr Brodie arrived with his medical bag and gently pushed Hamish aside. Hamish sat down on the beach and put his head in his hands.

  “Hamish, Hamish, I thought you were dead,” whispered Priscilla in his ear.

  “Aye,” said Hamish on a sigh. “I thought that myself.”

  “Did you get a battering on the rocks?”

  “No, there was such a lot of water, it swept us over them. Where did it all come from?”

  “The Drum Loch at the top got filled up wi’ melting snow and burst its banks,” said Archie Maclean, the fisherman. “I hivnae seen the like since ‘46.”

  An Air-Sea Rescue helicopter was landing a little way away along the beach. Hamish shivered. Dr Brodie said, “He’ll live. We’ll get the helicopter to take him to hospital just to be sure. I’ll attend to his mother and then she’d better go with him. You’d best go home and get a hot drink, Hamish. No broken bones?”

  “No, I’m chust fine,” said Hamish. Followed by Priscilla, he made his way through the crowd. People slapped him on the back and shook his hand as he passed.

  “Where’s Willie?” asked Hamish.

  “I don’t know,” said Priscilla. “I certainly didn’t see him anywhere about.”

  They had walked together along the beach away from the roaring, foaming river. They came to a flight of seaweedy stone steps cut into the sea-wall and climbed up them on to the waterfront. In front of them on the other side of the road was the Napoli restaurant, and there, at the side door of the restaurant, in the nonchalant manner of a stage-door Johnnie, was Willie.

  “Willie!” shouted Hamish.

  Willie started guiltily and then came running over, seemingly aware for the first time of the crowds, the helicopter and the dripping-wet Hamish. “Whit happened?” he asked.