by M C Beaton
“I’m tired, and Jimmy’s drunk all the whisky. Off with the pair of you.”
♦
Outside the police station, Luke said, “That policeman’s keen on you. And what about you? Why did you let him think we were an item?”
“Stop asking questions. There’s a good restaurant along here. I’m hungry.”
Elspeth stalked off. Luke watched her, amused, and then followed after her.
∨ Death of a Maid ∧
4
Everyone lives by selling something.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Before visiting Mrs. Styles the following morning, Hamish decided to call in at the bakery in Braikie to have a talk with Mrs. Gillespie’s friend Queenie Hendry. He remembered Queenie as soon as he set eyes on her. He had interviewed her once before when he was tracking down a murderer. She was a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman with neat grey hair and a rosy-cheeked face. He found it hard to believe that she should have had anything in common with the late Mrs. Gillespie.
“Can I be having a word with you?” he asked.
“It’ll be about Mavis,” she said. She turned to her assistant. “Alice, mind the counter.”
Queenie raised the counter flap and walked through. “It’s a terrible business,” she said. “Poor Mavis.”
“I gather you were a friend of Mrs. Gillespie.”
“Yes, we often had a chat together after I’d closed up the shop. My, the poor woman did love cream cakes.”
“Did you ever get the impression – now, think carefully – that she might be a blackmailer?”
She turned a little pale.
“Look,” urged Hamish. “She’s dead. If you know anything at all, please tell me.”
“If I tell you, you’ll report me to the council,” she whispered.
“Come outside,” said Hamish. “We need a private chat.”
They walked together outside the shop. The wind had died down, and the day was warm and sunny.
“I’ll do you a deal,” said Hamish. “Whatever you tell me, I won’t report you to the council.”
She hugged herself with strong arms across her white-aproned chest.
“It’s like this. I had this plague o’ mice. Had a job getting rid o’ the things. The shop was quiet, and I happened to tell Mavis about it. ‘Let me see,’ she said. ‘I’ve a fair way with the mice.’
“I led her through to the back. I switched on the light, and there they were, mice scampering all over the place. To my horror, she took out a wee camera and started snapping off pictures. Then she said, ‘Now, Queenie, I think the health and safety people at the council would be interested in these photos.’ I told her the exterminator was coming in the morning, but I know there’s this bastard on the council who loves making life a misery for shopkeepers. She said she wouldn’t do anything about it as long as she could have a box of cream cakes every day.
That wasn’t enough. She insisted she was my friend and kept dropping in for a chat. She frightened me.”
“You should have come to me,” said Hamish. “I’d soon have shut her up. I’ll need to ask you what you were doing yesterday morning.”
“I was in the shop all morning. I can tell you which customers came in, and Alice was with me the whole time.”
“Did it never dawn on you that if she was blackmailing you, she could have been blackmailing others?”
“No. She never asked for money. Just cream cakes.”
Hamish thanked her and told her if she could think of anything else or had any idea who else Mrs. Gillespie might have been blackmailing, to let him know.
As he drove off to interview Mrs. Styles, he glanced in his rear-view mirror and noticed a small car following him with Shona Fraser at the wheel. He stopped, got out as she parked behind him, and went to speak to her.
“You should be with the detective chief inspector,” he said.
“He does nothing but shout at people. I thought I’d catch up with you. I’m sure you’re the better story.”
Hamish leered down at her. “Aye, that would be grand. I can chust see myself on the telly. Which would you say wass my best side?”
“Forget about that. Where are you going?”
“I’m going up to the Gordons’ farm to check their sheep papers are in order. Checking sheep papers is a right important thing.”
“But what about the murder!”
“The sheep papers may not be important to you,” said Hamish, whose face reflected nothing more than amiable stupidity, “but they’re life and death to some folk. Now, let me tell you all about sheep. I haff the rare knowledge of the sheep.”
“Got to go,” said Shona hurriedly.
Hamish watched, amused, as she drove off. Then the smile left his face as he continued to drive towards the home of Mrs. Styles. The fact that Mrs. Gillespie could go to such lengths to blackmail Mrs. Hendry – and for cream cakes! Gluttony, malice, control, and bullying. No wonder someone murdered her!
Mrs. Styles lived in a bungalow on the outskirts of the town. He cursed Blair as he walked up to the door. Blair would have left Mrs. Styles with a dislike and distrust of the police.
♦
Luke Teviot felt awash with tea. He found Elspeth’s idea of reporting in the Highlands very odd. Instead of going to interview the people for whom Mrs. Gillespie had cleaned, she had called on various homes between Lochdubh and Braikie, being welcomed by people she had known, drinking tea, and gossiping. But he soon began to see that she was eliciting quite a bit of information about the late Mrs. Gillespie.
At last, Elspeth said, “We’re going to see a Mrs. Samson. She lived next door to Mrs. Fleming and seems to have been a friend of Mrs. Gillespie as well as being a nasty gossip.”
“All right,” said Luke, sending a lazy spiral of cigarette smoke up into the clear air. “But if I have to drink another cup of tea or eat another scone, I’ll scream.”
Soon they were sitting in the smoky cavern of Mrs. Samson’s living room. “Do you mind if I smoke?” asked Luke.
“Yes, I do,” snapped Mrs. Samson. “Do you know what that stuff does to your lungs?”
The fire belched out another cloud of grey coal smoke.
“As I was saying,” pursued Elspeth, “we are planning to write a nice obituary about your friend.”
Those eyes magnified by the thick glasses seemed to grow even larger as Mrs. Samson gave a dry chuckle. Then she said, “You’ll have a hard time, lassie. Nobody liked her.”
“But you were her friend.”
“I liked her gossip. She knew something about everyone, even you, Miss Grant. She knew you were pining after that policeman but how he never got over Miss Halburton-Smythe.”
Luke raised his eyebrows in surprise. Elspeth said quickly, “Then obviously she often never got her facts straight. How did you both become friends?”
“She came to my door one day. She asked to use the phone. I said I’d seen her with one o’ those mobile things, but herself said the battery was dead. I let her in. She made a call from the hall to someone. She said, “I’m missing my wages and you’d better pay up.” That’s all I heard. Now I learn from that Macbeth policeman that she was a blackmailer.”
“When was this? When did she make that call?” asked Elspeth.
“Let me see. My memory isn’t so good. Maybe June last year.”
“So you didn’t know her for long?”
“No, but she was a fair gossip. That first time, she says to me, she says, your neighbour killed her husband. Did you know that? Well, I told her to sit down because I fair loathe that wee scunner next door with her airs and graces. Always complaining. She said the smoke from my lum had messed up her washing.”
Elspeth wondered briefly how any smoke managed to get up the chimney, as most of it seemed to escape into the room.
“How did Mrs. Fleming’s husband die?” asked Luke.
“Fell down the stairs and broke his neck.”
“And had Mrs. Gillespie seen this?”
&
nbsp; “She didn’t say. She was always hinting at things. After she said that Mrs. Fleming had murdered her husband, she wouldn’t be drawn on anything. Did she make a will?”
“I suppose so,” said Elspeth. “Why?”
“Herself said she’d leave me something useful in her will.”
Elspeth was now longing to get to the house next door and interview Mrs. Fleming, but she had to go on pretending she was writing an obituary.
At last, they escaped.
“Whew!” said Elspeth. “I thought I’d choke to death. I wonder if she did make a will. Let’s try Mrs. Fleming. Put that cigarette out, Luke. Haven’t you inhaled enough smoke already?”
♦
Mrs. Styles was a formidable woman. She was built like a cottage loaf and had thick grey hair worn in a bun. She had a round face and large grey eyes. Her mouth was small and thin. She was wearing a tweed skirt, crepe blouse, and a long woollen cardigan.
She looked Hamish up and down and demanded, “What do you want?”
“Just a wee chat.”
“I don’t have time for wee chats. I have already complained about that man Blair and his manners.”
“I have heard,” said Hamish, “that you are an intelligent and perceptive lady. You seem to me the type of lady who might notice things other people do not.”
She hesitated, and then said, “You’d better come in.”
In the living room, a man was slumped in front of the television set. “Archie,” said Mrs. Styles, “you’d better leave us a minute.”
Her husband – Hamish assumed it was her husband – got up and shuffled out without a word. He was a small, stooped man wearing a suit, collar, and tie but with battered old carpet slippers on his feet.
“Sit down, Officer. Wait till I turn the television off. Right. Now, what do you want to know?”
Hamish sat down and looked around the living room as he did so. He found it surprising. He would have expected it to be sparkling clean, but it was messy with discarded magazines and newspapers. The fireplace was full of ash.
“I gather that Mrs. Gillespie could be a bit of a bully.”
“Yes, she was, but she got nowhere with me with that sort of behaviour. I kept after her and made sure she did her job properly.”
“When was she last here?”
“Five days ago.”
“Did you guess she might have been blackmailing people?”
“No, I did not. Of course, she wouldn’t try anything like that with me. I would have gone straight to the police.”
“Were you surprised to learn she had been murdered?”
“Yes, I was. I mean, this is Braikie.”
“There have been murders here in the past.”
“It was probably some traveller, one of these New Age people.”
“We don’t get the New Age people up here,” said Hamish. “The locals are liable to chase them off with shotguns.”
“Well, ever since they built the new motorways, all sorts of weird people come up from the cities.”
“Did Mrs. Gillespie ever talk to you about the other people she cleaned for?”
“I do not tolerate gossip. Besides, when she was here, I was usually out and about. I do a great deal for the church.”
Hamish persevered but could not get any useful information out of her. As he was rising to leave, he noticed a framed photo on a side table. It was of a very beautiful young girl, standing by the wall of some seafront, her long black hair blown by the wind. “Your daughter?” he asked.
“I do not have children. Believe it or not, that was me as a young lassie.”
In the small hallway just before the front door was a hat stand of the old·fashioned kind with a mirror and a ledge in front of the mirror. Hamish noticed that both the mirror and the ledge were dusty. He estimated they hadn’t been cleaned for some time.
He decided to return to Lochdubh and collect his pets and then go to Strathbane and read the report on the late Mr. Fleming’s death. There seemed to be a board meeting going on inside his head. One voice was wondering whether Mrs. Styles was as innocent as she would like to appear, another querying the death of Bernie Fleming, another wondering whether Elspeth was romantically involved with Luke Teviot, and suddenly another little voice asked whether Mrs. Gillespie had left a will.
♦
Hamish collected Lugs and Sonsie and drove quickly to Strathbane. At police headquarters, he sat down and switched on the computer and searched until he found the report of Bernie Fleming’s death. He read it and reread it but it seemed an open-and-shut case. Accidental death.
He went up to the detectives’ room and found Jimmy Anderson just leaving. “I’ve been checking up on Bernie Fleming’s death,” said Hamish. “Nothing there that I can see. Did Mrs. Gillespie make a will?”
“Yes, I phoned round every solicitor in Braikie until I got the right one. She left everything to her husband. Oh, and one other thing. She left a sealed packet of mementoes to be given to her friend Mrs. Samson.”
“He won’t have given it to her,” said Hamish. “I mean, he’ll have to wait for the outcome of the police enquiry.”
“As a matter of fact, he gave it to her this morning. She called at his office in a cab. He said he didn’t see the harm in it because it wasn’t money. He’s a bit young and naive.”
“We’ve got to get to Mrs. Samson fast!”
“Why?”
“Don’t you see? Mrs. Gillespie might have left her copies of the stuff she was using to blackmail people. We’ve got to get to her as quick as possible. I’ll drive. You’ve been drinking already.”
♦
Hamish put on the siren as they raced toward Braikie. “You don’t think anything could happen to her this early?” asked Jimmy, looking nervously back at Hamish’s wild cat, Sonsie.
“Even if she’s all right, we need to know what was in that package,” said Hamish. “Oh, damn it. Sheep on the road. Get out and chase them, Jimmy.”
“Chase them yourself. I’m your superior officer. I don’t chase sheep.”
Hamish stopped the Land Rover, and Jimmy watched, amused, as Hamish, his arms going like a windmill, sent the sheep scurrying off into a nearby field.
Hamish heaved a sigh of relief when he at last gained the shore road leading into Braikie. He screeched through the town, the siren blaring, and up to the villas where Mrs. Samson lived.
His heart sank when he turned into her street. Outside her house, it was chaos as the local fire brigade battled with the searing flames that were engulfing the house.
“Is she in there?” cried Hamish, leaping down from the Land Rover.
“Can’t get near the place to find out,” said a fireman. “Stand back.”
Hamish made a run for the front door, but before he could reach it, the glass-paned door exploded and a great sheet of flame burst out, driving him back.
Blair arrived and demanded to know what was going on. Hamish told him that Mrs. Samson had collected a package from the solicitor that morning.
“So,” explained Hamish, “someone knew about that package, and someone must have been frightened that it contained blackmailing stuff. If she made one phone call, we can trace it.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Blair saw Shona arriving and said quickly, “You’d better get back round all the suspects again and find out where they were.”
Hamish took one last look at the blazing house before he turned away. Old Mrs. Samson could not possibly be alive in that inferno, and whatever papers she had received from the solicitor would have gone up in flames with her.
♦
Hamish decided to begin at the beginning and go back and see Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson. He was driving through Braikie’s main street when at first he thought he saw a ghost. The elderly figure of Mrs. Samson was looking in the window of the bakery. He screeched to a halt. Lugs let out a sharp bark of protest. Hamish jumped down from the Land Rover.
“Mrs. Samson,” he cried. “Do you know your hou
se is on fire?”
“What!”
“It’s in flames. I’d better take you back there. The firemen think you’re still inside.”
She put her hand to her chest, and he supported her, frightened she would faint. Then he helped her up into the Land Rover. She huddled in the passenger seat, muttering, “Oh, my house.”
“Was it insured?” asked Hamish.
“Aye.” A little colour began to return to her cheeks. “I’ll maybe be able to get myself a nice wee bungalow, everything on the one floor.”
Hamish drove up to the burning villa. Elspeth saw him arrive and whipped out a camera and began to take photographs as Hamish helped the old lady out of the Land Rover.
Blair came hurrying up. “Who’s this? I told you to get out there and interview folks.”
“This is Mrs. Samson,” said Hamish. “She was fortunately out shopping when the fire started.” Hamish turned to the old lady. “Mrs. Samson, the solicitor gave you a packet of papers left you by Mrs. Gillespie. Do you by any chance have them with you?”
She shook her head. “I never even opened the packet. Mrs. Gillespie told that solicitor it was just old mementoes – photos and letters. I thought I’d give them to her stepdaughter, Heather.”
“And did you?”
“I hadn’t the time. I left them on the table in the hall.”
Hamish looked gloomily at the blazing house.
“You!” snapped Blair. “Stop standing there gawking like a loon. Get to work. We’ll look after Mrs. Samson.”
Behind Blair’s back, Jimmy mimed drinking motions which Hamish interpreted to mean that he would be over at Lochdubh at the end of the day.
♦
Most of the time, Hamish was used to the winds of Sutherland. But as he got out of the Land Rover in front of Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson’s house, he felt the increasing strength of a gale and sighed. Calm days were a brief respite from the yelling and screech of the Sutherland winds, and this one was already beginning to howl like a banshee.
He clutched at his cap as he rang the bell. He waited. No reply.
He retreated and drove down to Mrs. Beattie’s shop. “Have you seen Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson this morning?” he asked.
“No, it’s been right quiet. Awful that, about Mrs. Samson’s house.”
