by M C Beaton
He drove up to the villa and then up the short curving drive. As well as the tall monkey puzzle at the gate, the garden was crammed with laurel bushes and rhododendrons. The wind was cut off by the high stone wall which surrounded the garden. Rain plopped from the leaves of the bushes.
Hamish rang the bell and waited. The door was answered by a tall woman. She was dressed in a well-tailored tweed suit. The tweed was not new – such as Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson, Hamish guessed, would be too sophisticated to be caught wearing brand-new tweed – and yet the clothes sat oddly on her as if her normal style might be something more towny.
“Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson?”
“Yes. It is I.”
He judged her to be somewhere in her middle forties. She had thick brown hair pulled back into a knot, a long nose, and small, intelligent eyes. She looked something like a collie.
Hamish removed his cap. “I am Police Constable Hamish Macbeth. May I come in? I have some bad news.”
Most people would have blurted out, Is it my son? My daughter? Or some close relative. But she merely nodded and turned away.
He followed her into a dark hall and then into a large sitting room on the ground floor. It was decorated like a scaled-down version of the drawing room of a stately home. The sofa and chairs were upholstered in striped silk. The curtains at the windows were of heavier silk. Over the fireplace was a portrait of Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson – apparently an oil portrait – but Hamish’s sharp eyes registered that it was a photograph, cleverly treated to look like an oil painting. A log fire crackled on the hearth of a marble fireplace.
She sat down and gestured to him to do the same. Her stockings were thick, and her feet were encased in sensible brogues.
“So tell me your bad news,” she said calmly. Her voice was English upper class.
“I’m afraid your cleaner, Mrs. Gillespie, has been found murdered.”
“Good heavens! That’s a blow. Now where am I going to get another maid?”
She surveyed him quietly. Why didn’t she ask how Mrs. Gillespie was murdered and where? wondered Hamish.
“Tell me about Mrs. Gillespie,” said Hamish. “Was she a threat to anyone? Did anyone dislike her enough to kill her?”
She gave a little laugh. “My dear man, I was not on familiar terms with the home help. I haven’t the faintest idea. Might be the husband. It usually is.”
“The husband has an alibi. Where were you this morning, between, say, the hours of ten and eleven?”
Her face hardened. “You surely have not the impertinence to think that I would have anything to do with it?”
“I must eliminate everyone from my enquiries.”
“Well, I was here.”
“Any witnesses?”
“I am a bit isolated from the village. I don’t know if anyone saw me.”
“Mrs. Gillespie had an unexpectedly large amount of money in her bank account. We feel she may have been indulging in blackmail.”
“That’s ridiculous. She probably won the lottery.”
“The lottery would have meant a cheque. All the money was paid in cash.”
“I am beginning to find your insinuations a little bit impertinent. Please leave. If you persist in bothering me, I shall complain about you to your superiors.”
Hamish stood up. “I must warn you, this is just a preliminary investigation. You can expect a further visit from a detective.”
“See yourself out,” she snapped.
♦
Before he left, Hamish peered through the windows of the garage at the side of the house. He saw a powerful BMW. She could have raced over the hills to Braikie in record time with a car like that, waited outside the professor’s, and struck the cleaner down as she walked to her car. Hamish asked around the few houses in the village, but no one had seen Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson that morning. He learned that she was often absent for months at a time, and it was assumed she went to London. He wondered about Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson. What was she doing living alone so far from anywhere? And there had been something of the pretend-lady about her.
As he drove back towards Lochdubh, Hamish realised that Mrs. Wellington might know something interesting. She was always refreshingly direct.
Mrs. Wellington was in the manse kitchen, a gloomy relic of Victorian days with the rows of shelves meant for vast dinner services. There were still the old stone sinks.
“I heard about the murder,” said Mrs. Wellington. “I’m not surprised.”
Hamish sat down at the kitchen table and removed his hat.
“Why not?”
“She was such a nosy, bullying woman.”
“So why did you keep employing her?”
“I tried to fire her. She went to my husband in tears with some sob story. He told me it was my Christian duty to rehire her.”
“How was she nosy?”
“I occasionally caught her looking through drawers. She swore she had simply been cleaning the ledges inside. She was a great church-goer. One time my husband had just recovered from a nasty cold. He didn’t feel up to writing a sermon, and so he delivered an old one. Mrs. Gillespie recognised it and slyly asked me what people would think if they knew. I told her to go ahead and tell everyone, but I would let them all know the source of the nasty gossip. My! I remember I was so furious with her, I asked her if she went in for blackmail. She muttered something and scurried off.”
“The kettle’s boiling,” said Hamish, looking hopefully at the stove.
“I’ve no time to waste making tea or coffee for you, Hamish.”
“Apart from Professor Sander, do you know the other two women she worked for in Braikie, Mrs. Fleming and Mrs. Styles?”
“No, I don’t. They probably attend the kirk in Braikie. But I’ll tell you who will know – the Currie sisters. They sometimes attend church in Braikie for a bit of amusement.”
♦
The fact that the Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, twin spinsters of the parish, should find entertainment in church services came as no surprise to Hamish Macbeth. He knew local people who flocked to hear a visiting preacher with all the enthusiasm of teenagers going to a Robbie Williams concert.
Of course, he was not supposed to refer to them as spinsters any more. The police had been issued with a handbook of politically correct phrases. “Spinster’ was not allowed, nor, he thought sourly, as he headed for the spinsters’ cottage on the waterfront, was ‘interfering auld busybodies,” which was how he frequently damned them.
They were remarkably alike, both having tightly permed grey hair and thick glasses. He could tell them apart because Nessie was the more forceful one and her sister, Jessie, repeated phrases and sentences over again.
Other highlanders may have been alarmed to find a policeman on the doorstep, but it was almost as if the sisters had been expecting him.
“Come in,” said Nessie eagerly. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Waiting for you,” chorused her sister.
“Poor woman. Hit on the head with a bucket like that,” said Nessie. Bad news travels fast, thought Hamish.
“Was there a lot of blood?” asked Nessie.
“Blood,” intoned Jessie.
“Get the constable a cup of tea,” Nessie ordered her sister. Jessie left for the kitchen, grumbling under her breath.
Both sisters were small in size, and their furniture looked to Hamish as if it had come from a large doll’s house. He sank down into a small armchair and found his knees were up to his chin.
“I was wondering,” began Hamish, “if you could tell me anything about two ladies over in Braikie. Mrs. Gillespie worked for both of them. Mrs. Fleming and Mrs. Styles.”
“That would be gossip,” said Nessie righteously.
“It is known as helping the police with their enquiries,” corrected Hamish.
Nessie was delighted to have official permission to gossip. “Well,” she began, “Mrs. Fiona Fleming is a young widow with two teenage sons.”
“Can�
��t be that young. How old are the boys?”
“Sky is thirteen and Bobby, twelve.”
“Where did she get a name like Sky?” asked Hamish, momentarily diverted.
“I don’t know. Off the telly, most like.”
“What age is Mrs. Fleming?”
“About forty, I suppose. That’s young these days.”
“Does she work?”
“Doesn’t have to. Her late husband, Bernie, had a series of DVD rental shops all ower Scotland. She sold them off when he died.”
“When did he die?”
“Let me see.” Jessie came in stooped over a laden tray. “Jessie, when did Bernie Fleming die?”
“About five years ago, five years ago.”
“How did he die?”
“Got drunk and fell down the stairs in his house. Broke his poor neck,” said Nessie with ghoulish relish.
Hamish tuned out Jessie’s chorus and concentrated on what her sister was saying.
“What sort of woman is Mrs. Fleming?”
“Dainty wee thing. Been seen around with Dr. Renfrew from the hospital. Shocking.”
“Why?”
“The man’s married.”
Hamish took an offered cup of tea from Jessie. “And what about Mrs. Styles?”
“Now, there’s a right lady for you. Good church-goer and church worker.”
“Married?”
“Married to a retired shoe salesman. He’s a bit poorly in health.”
♦
When Hamish finally managed to leave the sisters’ cottage, his head was buzzing. He longed to go and interview this Mrs. Fleming. Had her husband’s death really been an accident? Did Dr. Renfrew’s wife know about the affair – if there was an affair? He knew from bitter experience that he had only to take some female out to dinner and the twins put it round the village the next day that he was having an affair.
∨ Death of a Maid ∧
3
3 or 4 families in a country village is the very thing to work on.
—Jane Austen, letter to Anna Austen
Hamish hurried back to the police station, thinking so hard about Mrs. Fleming that he only realised when he sat down in the police station office that he had left his pets in the Land Rover.
He hurried out and released them. “You’ve eaten,” he said. They both stared up at him, and then, with that odd telepathy the dog and the cat seemed to have between them, they both ran up to the fields at the back of the station.
Hamish went back into the office and looked up Jimmy Anderson’s mobile phone number. When Jimmy came on the line, Hamish said, “I happen to know one of the women in Braikie that Mrs. Gillespie cleaned for – a Mrs. Fleming. Could you persuade the auld scunner that it might be a good idea if I went to see her?” The good thing about being a Highlander, thought Hamish, was that one could tell a white lie without any conscience whatsoever.
“Wait a bit,” Jimmy said.
Hamish waited impatiently, hearing voices in the background. Then Jimmy’s voice came on the line again. He sounded amused. “Our lord and master says you can go.”
“Just like that?”
“Aye. That wee Shona lassie was listening, and Blair wants to be a television star, so he said yes. What have you got? You’ve heard something.”
“Tell you tonight,” said Hamish, and rang off.
♦
Nessie Currie had given him a slip of paper with the addresses of both Mrs. Fleming and Mrs. Styles. He noticed that Mrs. Fleming lived very near Professor Sander.
As he drove along the shore road to Braikie, he saw that the heaving Atlantic had turned a dirty grey-black in colour, although the sky above was still blue. “Storm coming,” he muttered to himself. “I hope I get back before this road gets flooded.”
There was no doubt in his mind that the sea had risen in past years. Now the trim bungalows that stood on the other side of the road were frequently deluged. A great buffet of wind suddenly shook the Land Rover, and he was glad to get into the shelter of the main street and then turn off the road which led to the villas.
Like Professor Sander, Mrs. Fleming lived in a Victorian villa with a short drive.
Here there were no flowers or trees in the garden: simply a flat expanse of lawn. He pressed the doorbell, which chimed out the strains of ‘Roamin’ in the Gloamin’.
The door was eventually opened by a small woman. Dainty was the word to describe her, thought Hamish.
She had a small round face, like a doll’s face, with wide blue eyes and a little rosebud of a mouth. Her blonde hair was artfully arranged in glossy curls. She was wearing the sort of Laura Ashley fashion which had been popular in the eighties: a long flowery dress with a square neckline edged in lace.
She looked up at Hamish and put her hand to her throat. “My boys!” she gasped.
“Nothing like that,” said Hamish soothingly. “May I come in?”
“Of course.” She backed away and allowed him to walk past her into the hall before shutting the door behind him.
“This way.” She opened a door off the hall and ushered him into a large living room. Hamish blinked in surprise. Everything seemed to be white: white leather sofa and two white leather armchairs, white coffee table, white curtains at the windows, and white-painted bookshelves. A white china vase held white chrysanthemums. Even the carpet was white.
Mrs. Fleming looked down at a little patch of mud from Hamish’s boots and said, “I should have asked you to take off your boots. I never allow my boys to wear footwear in the house.”
“I’ll take them off now,” said Hamish.
“The damage has been done. Sit down.” For such a small woman, she had a commanding presence.
Hamish took off his cap and sat down on one of the armchairs, which let out a rude noise like a fart. He found to his irritation that he was blushing. “These leather chairs do make awfy rude noises,” he said.
“Really?” She sat down in the armchair opposite him. It did not make a single sound. “Now, why are you here?”
“Mrs. Gillespie has been murdered,” he said.
What was flickering through those china-blue eyes of hers? Relief as well as shock?
“But that’s terrible,” she said. “How? Where?”
“Professor Sander’s house. She was found lying at that old water pump at the gate. I believe someone struck her down with her bucket.”
“Who did it?”
“We’re trying to find out. Where were you this morning, Mrs. Fleming?”
“Surely you don’t think…Oh, of course. You’re just asking everyone who knew her. Let me see, I drove the boys to school and then I came back here.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“I don’t think so. You can ask Mrs. Samson next door. She watches from her window all day long.”
“What did you think of Mrs. Gillespie?”
“A rough diamond. Salt of the earth.”
In other words, a walking cliché, thought Hamish cynically. “Were you afraid of her?”
“Of course not. She was just the cleaning woman. She came twice a week.”
Hamish’s hazel eyes roamed round the room. He noticed a thin film of dust on the bookshelves. “When was she here last?”
“That would be yesterday morning.”
“You’ve got dusty bookshelves.”
“Do I? Well, I left her to get on with it, you know.” Her little white hands plucked nervously at her gown. “I had enough of cleaning when my husband was alive.”
“Was she blackmailing you?” asked Hamish abruptly.
“No! Why do you ask such a dreadful thing? My life is an open book.”
“We think that might be the motive for her death.”
“I have nothing to hide.”
“Not even your relationship with Dr. Renfrew?”
Her face was suddenly contorted with fury. “Get out!” she screamed. “And you can speak to me through my lawyer in future.”
Hamish rose to hi
s feet, and the armchair gave a farewell parp. “I will shortly be replaced by a detective, Mrs. Reining, and if you refuse to answer questions, you will be taken to Strathbane headquarters for interrogation.”
“Out! Out! Out!” she screamed. She picked up the white china vase with white chrysanthemums and hurled it at his head. He dodged it, and the vase hit the wall and shattered.
“I could charge you for assaulting a police officer,” said Hamish severely. “I’ll be back.”
“Bugger off, Arnold Schwarzenegger,” she screamed.
♦
Hamish stood outside her gate and thought hard. He could not get over the fact that there had been no incriminating papers or letters in Mrs. Gillespie’s home. If she had been blackmailing her clients, surely she would have kept letters or something. But where?
He looked thoughtfully at the villa next door to the right. A lace curtain twitched.
He walked up to the door of the villa. There was no bell. He rapped with the old·fashioned brass ring set into the oak panels and waited. Shuffling feet approached the door on the other side, and then it was swung open.
“Mrs. Samson?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, come ben. You’re here about the murder. Wipe your feet.”
Mrs. Flora Samson was old and stooped. Pink scalp shone through her wisps of grey hair. Her elderly face was set in wrinkles of discontent. She wore very thick glasses, which magnified her eyes so that they looked like the eyes of an old witch asking the children if they would like some gingerbread.
Her living room was crammed with photos in frames. They seemed to be everywhere. The furniture was Victorian and draped with yellowing lace antimacassars. A stuffed owl on a bamboo table stared out of its glass case with baleful eyes. In another glass case mounted on the wall, a stuffed salmon swam endlessly against a badly painted backdrop of reeds and river. A coal fire was smouldering in the fireplace, occasionally sending out puffs of grey smoke. The room smelled strongly of lavender air freshener, which did not quite cover up the underlying smell of urine and unwashed armpits.
