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

by M C Beaton

  “None of that. Can I take a look through your paperbacks and borrow a hot-water bottle? Willie threw my hot-water bottle out. He said the rubber was perished.”

  “You sound like a man with a nagging wife. The books are over there; help yourself.”

  Hamish, after much deliberation, chose an American detective story of the tough-cop variety. He collected a hot-water bottle and then crunched his way out through the icy snow on the doctor’s unswept garden path. Great stars still burnt overhead but were beginning to be covered with thin high trails of cloud. He sniffed the air. A change was coming. The air smelt damp, rain-damp, not the metallic smell of snow.

  He drove slowly to the police station. The furniture was gone from outside. Inside, the stove was blazing merrily in the kitchen. Everything smelt damply of ammonia and disinfectant. He took a look around the rest of the place. Willie’s bedroom door was tightly shut, a mute reproach to Hamish’s lack of understanding about housekeeping. Hamish went back to the kitchen and sat in front of the fire and opened the detective story. In it, the detective had a blonde girlfriend whom he treated abominably, something which seemed to make her even more adoring. Long and careful questioning of suspects was out of the question. He simply slapped them around until he got the answers. It was as remote a way of life to Hamish as an Arthurian legend. He read happily and finally went to bed with much of his old good-natured frame of mind restored. Let Willie clean and scrub and write reports in convoluted English. If he just ignored the man and went about his own ways, then life would be tolerable. As for Priscilla…?

  Pompous hard-faced bitch, he thought, clutching the comforting hot-water bottle to his stomach. Who needs her anyway?

  §

  The weather again went in for one of its abrupt changes and heralded in the morning light with a blast of wind which roared into the loch and departed at the other end with an eldritch screech. Following it came the rain, steady, drenching rain. Once more the River Anstey was in tumult and the bridge was being seriously damaged by the pressure of the roaring flood. The village council met to decide whether to opt for a completely new bridge by the side of the old one, a new one which could take two lanes of traffic. But the die-hards wanted the old bridge. It was picturesque and one of the much photographed sights of the village.

  Willie, sensing there was some sort of a truce, kept his housekeeping to a minimum, but when Hamish made no protest, he was soon happily back, polishing everything in sight.

  But his happiness was dimmed by the fact that Lucia was walking out with Jimmy Gordon, the forestry worker. Jimmy was tall and fairly good-looking. Everyone in the village said they made a handsome couple.

  Hamish had elected to do the outer reaches of the beat by car, leaving Willie to cover the village beat on foot. Somehow, wherever Jimmy walked with Lucia, Willie was never far behind.

  “Would ye no’ like tae come for a bit o’ a drive up in the hills wi’ me?” Jimmy was asking Lucia. “We cannae get away from the polis.”

  Lucia shook her head. Mr Ferrari said she was allowed to go for walks with Jimmy in the village and always where they could be seen. She glanced back at Willie and then said in her soft voice and very slowly, for she was always translating what she said in her mind from Italian to English, “What is your idea of marriage, Jeemy?”

  He took her hand in his. “I want a wee wife to work and clean fur me, someone pretty tae come home tae in the evenings.”

  “Would you wish me to iron your shirts?”

  “Aye, that would be grand. Look at this one. It’s a’ crumpled.”

  “Why don’t you iron it yourself, Jeemy?”

  He gave a great laugh and then flung an arm about her shoulders. “That’s women’s work.”

  Lucia gently disengaged herself.

  Jimmy never knew what he had said wrong. But after that when he called at the kitchen door for Lucia, it was always old Mr Ferrari who answered and who told him that Lucia was too busy to see him.

  Chapter Four

  They flee from me, that sometime did me seek.

  —Sir Thomas Wyatt

  The good weather did not come all at once. At first there was a lessening of the wind, then the rain decreased to a thin drizzle and soon the rain ceased altogether, letting fitful rays of watery sunlight through the clouds. The days grew perceptibly warmer until even Hamish Macbeth, who delighted in his new central heating, was forced to admit that the police station was becoming like a hothouse. And then one day all the clouds rolled back and pale-blue skies stretched above Lochdubh, and the River Anstey at long last settled back down into its familiar banks, leaving a path of torn trees and bleached grass on either side as a record of its recent fury.

  But the coming of the idyllic weather made Hamish Macbeth realize that he was becoming oddly unpopular. Angela Brodie, the doctor’s wife, went out of her way to avoid him, as did Mrs Wellington. No more did Priscilla drop in on him for a chat. Even Nessie and Jessie Currie, the village spinster sisters, dived indoors and left their gardening tools scattered on the lawn when they saw him coming.

  And for some reason, Hamish felt it all had something to do with Sean Gourlay. The bus was still there, looking to Hamish like a cancerous sore in the heart of the village. But he could not ask Sean to move on because of a feeling of evil, or rather a premonition of evil to come. He knew several of the villagers, the Misses Curries and Angela among them, had been visitors to the bus. Cheryl was occasionally to be seen about the village, much cleaned up and quiet, always on her own and talking to no one. Hamish was sure Sean had started some campaign to turn the villagers against him.

  And then there was the strange behaviour of Mr Wellington, the minister. Like most churches these days, Mr Wellington’s was sparsely attended, although the organizations connected with the church were as busy as ever. Most women in the village belonged to the Mothers’ Union, of which Mrs Wellington was the chairwoman. The Boy Scouts and Girl Guides were both well attended. But gradually the church began to fill up on Sundays and Hamish was surprised to see members of the Free Presbyterian Church, members from the Free Church of Scotland, and from the Unitarians all neglecting their own kirks to go and hear Mr Wellington preach. What could be the reason? Hamish decided to find out. He told Willie to man the phone in the police office and went along to the church himself, meeting the fisherman, Archie Maclean, and his wife on the way.

  “I’ve never known you to go to the kirk before,” said Hamish.

  “Aye, but this is different,” said Archie. “Mr Wellington preaches a rare sermon. We’ve heard naethin’ like it since the auld days.”

  Hamish was intrigued. On his rare visits to church, he had tried to keep awake as Mr Wellington’s gentle scholarly voice wrestled with one of the more esoteric points of the Bible. Hamish often thought it sounded as if the minister were reasoning with himself.

  He slid into a pew at the back.

  The hymns were of the variety now frowned upon by liberal churchmen of all denominations as being too militant: ‘Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus, Ye Soldiers of the Lord’, and ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’.

  Then the minister climbed up into the high pulpit and looked down at a sheaf of yellowing notes. Hamish was surprised. Before, the minister’s sermons had been extempore, or rather so well rehearsed that he spoke without notes.

  Then he suddenly looked down at his flock and said in a harsh voice Hamish had never heard him use before, “There are many of you here who will all burn in hell!”

  There was a pleasurable indrawing of breath. Mrs Maclean edged a peppermint into her mouth. For some reason it was considered all right to eat peppermints in church, although chocolates would be considered downright sinful.

  “Yes,” went on the minister, “there are many of you who are liars and fornicators, and your lot will be to be cast into the pit where your flesh will fry, yea, and your crackling skin will be pricked with pitchforks by demons.”

  The sermon ranted on for one hour and forty
minutes. Hamish sat stunned. It was only when the minister summed up by asking them all to pray to God to protect them from the evil that was Napoleon Bonaparte that a glimmer of understanding began to dawn in his hazel eyes.

  Curious and beginning to be half-worried, half-amused, he also went to the evening service. He was late and had to stand at the back, for the church was full to overflowing.

  He was among the last to leave. He shook Mr Wellington’s hand and said quietly, “Can I drop up to the manse and have a word with you?”

  “Yes, Hamish,” said the minister absent-mindedly. “I shall be there to hear your troubles.”

  “It’s your troubles I’m thinking about,” said Hamish, but the minister was already shaking hands with a couple behind him and receiving their plaudits.

  Hamish went up to the manse later, glad to find the minister on his own.

  “What can I do for you?” asked Mr Wellington.

  “What’s come over you?” asked Hamish. “You never were a one for all that fire and brimstone.”

  “It brings people to church and instills a fear of God in them which is what I am here for,” said the minister primly.

  “But it’s not like you,” expostulated Hamish. “You know what I think? I think that one day you couldn’t think of a sermon and so you found some old ones and used one of them instead. Instant success! So you went on doing it. You’re a walking horror movie. You’ll have the children terrified to go to sleep at night. You don’t even listen to what you’re saying, which is why you left in the bit about Napoleon.”

  The minister flushed angrily and glared at the wall.

  “Come on, what’s been happening?” asked Hamish gently.

  Mr Wellington clasped his hands and swung to face Hamish. “I’ve lost my faith,” he said. “No words of mine have any meaning any more. In despair, yes, I used old sermons I found in a box in the attic. It’s what they want. It brings them to the kirk.”

  “Aye, so would a strip-tease. Surely you’ve lost your faith afore? It happens from time to time.”

  “No, never.”

  Hamish leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “Has this anything to do with Sean Gourlay?”

  “He did question me,” said the minister awkwardly. “People here do not question ministers, and maybe they should. We get complacent, arrogant. He showed me pictures of refugees stumbling along roads pitted with bomb craters, of thousands dying after floods and tornadoes, and he asked me seriously how I could believe in a God of love.”

  “But you can’t defend the indefensible,” said Hamish wearily. “Blind faith’s the only answer, you know that. You must have had all thae arguments dinned in your ears when you were a student.”

  “I am out of the world up here, Hamish. As Sean rightly pointed out, I have an easy life while millions are starving and suffering under the lash of the God I worship.”

  “There are millions who would suffer a damn sight more if they didnae have something tae believe in,” said Hamish angrily. “How dae ye think they would feel if they were told that this is it, this is all there is, and after the grave, there is nothing?”

  “My wife feels the same as I do,” he said heavily. “It has affected her badly. She is a shadow of her former self.”

  Spiritually but not physically, thought Hamish, who had seen the large tweedy bulk of Mrs Wellington in church that evening. “Don’t make any rash decisions,” said Hamish. “Give it a few months. Talk to some other members of the clergy. Father Peter along at the Roman Catholic church seems a good man, and a clever one, too. Have a word with him.”

  The minister smiled wryly. “I do not know what my flock would think if they saw me consulting a Roman Catholic.”

  “We’re all ecumenical these days,” pointed out Hamish. “Anyway, no one need know. Run along and see him. It’s all the one God.”

  When Hamish left, he strolled along the waterfront wondering if he himself believed anything he had said, wondering if there really was anything far beyond the first stars which were beginning to glitter in a pale-green sky.

  With a sigh he went into the police station, to be met with a delicious smell. “You’re late for dinner,” said Willie, sliding a plate of beef casserole, which smelt of rich wine sauce, on to the table.

  “Where did this come from?” asked Hamish.

  “Mr Ferrari,” said Willie, deftly opening a bottle of Italian wine.

  He’s been cleaning the restaurant stove again, thought Hamish, but was too grateful for the delicious meal to say so.

  After dinner, the phone rang. It was Jimmy Anderson from Strathbane. “I took pity on ye, Hamish,” said the detective, “and contacted the Yard. Sean Gourlay’s got a record.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Hamish eagerly.

  “Nothing great, mind you, petty larceny, possession of cannabis, disturbance of the peace. Nothing for the last three years. Was in Hong Kong, where he got his first driving licence. Let it lapse and took the test in Glasgow.”

  “Well, send me up a report,” said Hamish. “It might do to get him off the manse field and out of this village.”

  Willie came into the police office. “The doctor’s here tae see you,” he said.

  Hamish rang off and turned to face an agitated Dr Brodie. “I was making an inventory of the drugs cabinet, Hamish, and there’s four packets of morphine missing.”

  “I’d better come down and have a look at the cabinet. I cannae remember. Is it easy tae get into?” asked Hamish.

  “No, it’s padlocked and it’s got a metal grille over it.”

  “And nothing’s been broken?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  Hamish dialled Strathbane and reported the theft, asking for a forensic team to be sent up in the morning. “And while you’re at it,” he said, “get me a search warrant for Sean Gourlay’s bus.”

  “What, the traveller?” exclaimed the doctor. “But he hasn’t been near the surgery.”

  “Well, we’ll see,” said Hamish. “Come on, Willie. Let’s go and have a look.” They followed the doctor to his home.

  Angela, the doctor’s wife, gave Hamish a nervous look. “Isn’t it terrible?” she gasped.

  “We’ll see if we can find any clues,” said Hamish. Dr Brodie collected the keys to the surgery, which was along the road from his home.

  Hamish examined the locks of the surgery carefully and then, inside, inspected the cabinet. “When do you think the packets of morphine were taken?” he asked.

  “That’s the devil of it,” said Dr Brodie. “I haven’t really checked anything for six months. This is all I need.”

  “Well, we’d best lock everything up again and let no one near it until after the forensic team’s arrived,” said Hamish.

  Hamish fully expected Detective Chief Inspector Blair to arrive on the following morning, but it was an Inspector Turnbull, a dour Aberdonian who arrived with Detective Jimmy Anderson and three uniformed policemen as well as the forensic team. He had a search warrant for Sean’s bus and listened carefully as Hamish described Sean’s criminal record.

  Sean and Cheryl were brought down to the police station, where they were both searched, and then Sean was asked to take them to the bus.

  Sean opened the door for them and then examined the search warrant again carefully. “If you and your lady will just step outside,” said Inspector Turnbull, “we’ll be as quick as we can.”

  The day was fine and mild. Sean and Cheryl sat side by side on a large packing case on the grass. Hamish noticed that they did not speak to each other.

  He found himself praying to the God he was not quite sure he believed in for drugs to be found. He felt Sean was an evil influence on the village and wanted him out of it.

  At long last, Turnbull emerged. “Nothing,” he said to Hamish.

  “Great stinking pigs,” muttered Cheryl, but Sean put a hand on her arm and remarked pleasantly, “You really must stop harassing us, Inspector, just because we
don’t fit into any conventional pattern.”

  “Oh, I wouldnae say that,” said Turnbull. “There’s a lot o’ you long-haired layabouts crawling about Scotland.”

  “My hair is not long, and if you don’t watch your mouth, Inspector, I shall sue you for harassment. You’ve found nothing, so shove off.”

  Hamish suddenly said, “Better check under the bus, Inspector, just in case.”

  He had the satisfaction of seeing a look of alarm on Cheryl’s face.

  Sean lit a cigarette and eyed Hamish through the smoke. “Determined to find me guilty, eh? I think it’s time I phoned the press.”

  He loped off in the direction of the manse. Hamish watched while the Calor gas tank outside the bus was unhitched, as were the cables from the bus to the manse, Sean obviously leeching electricity supplies from the minister. The keys, as Cheryl informed them, were in the blank, blank, blanking ignition. The bus roared into life and moved forward.

  To Hamish’s delight, there were loose sods of earth under the bus which, when lifted, revealed a hole about three feet square, recently dug. But it turned out to be full of rubbish—Coke cans, bottles and scraps of paper.

  Whatever had been hidden there, and Hamish was sure something had been hidden there, had gone. But who could have alerted Sean? Willie was a gossip, but Willie had been close to him, Hamish, since the doctor had first reported the theft.

  Cheryl put up an arm to brush her hair out of her eyes. Her loose sleeve rolled back. Hamish saw ugly bruises on her thin arm.