Death of a Maid hm-23

by M C Beaton

  He barely slept that night. He was up early to shave and dress and feed the cat and dog. It was only after he had fed them that he realised his guilty conscience was making them fat because he was giving them too many meals.

  Once more he took the road to Braikie under the chill light of a small yellow sun, rising above the mountains.

  He was too early when he arrived outside Mr. Gillespie’s home. He sat in the Land Rover and fretted until, at last, Heather arrived.

  She let him in and said, “Come upstairs, but quiet, now. Dad’ll still be asleep. I put a lot of stuff in the spare room. It used to be mine.”

  She pushed open a door and said, “I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got to have a cup of coffee. You’re just in time. The Salvation Army is sending someone round this afternoon to pick the lot up.”

  Hamish ignored the plastic bags of clothes. “Where are the videos?”

  “You’ll find them in that box over by the window.”

  Hamish knelt down on the floor beside the box and began to go through them. There were various films, but six tapes were not marked at all. He’d need to go through the lot.

  He carried them down to the kitchen. “Have you a video recorder here?”

  “I haven’t seen one. I seem to mind she threw it out when she got the DVD player.”

  Hamish wrote her a receipt for the tapes. He did not have any sort of recorder at the police station. Then he remembered that Angela Brodie had a video recorder.

  ♦

  Angela was cooking breakfast when Hamish arrived. She was placing a plate of sausage, eggs, bacon, fried bread, and black pudding in front of the doctor.

  “That’ll fur your arteries,” commented Hamish.

  “Did you interrupt my breakfast to lecture me on diet?” asked Dr. Brodie, taking a swipe at a cat that was trying to drag a sausage off the plate.

  Hamish explained that he needed a video recorder.

  “There’s one in the living room,” said Angela. “Help yourself. It’s all over the news this morning, Hamish, that the professor committed those murders.”

  “Maybe,” said Hamish.

  He went into the living room, switched on the television, and slotted the first of the tapes into the video recorder. It turned out to be the one featuring Dr. Renfrew, amongst others. The next one, also Trant Television, was about shady car dealers. He watched it until the end in case Tom Morrison should appear, but there was nothing there. He took it out and changed it for another. It was an expose of the number of pirated goods in street markets. His heart sinking, he tried another. It was about antique dealers who faked antiques.

  Angela brought him in a cup of coffee. He thanked her, wincing a little as he saw a cat hair sticking to the edge of the cup.

  “Got anything?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” said Hamish.

  “You looking for proof of something?”

  “I was hoping to find some.”

  “I’ll leave you to it.”

  Hamish slotted in the fifth tape. He found himself looking at a programme about prostitution. He sighed impatiently as he listened to interviews with prostitutes. He was about to switch off the tape when the presenter said, “Of course, there are still top-flight models, as they are called, on sale at discreet clubs in London. We could not gain access, but we found a film which had been secretly taken at a club in Beauchamp Place in the early nineties.” Hamish watched the grainy film. Very beautiful girls were drinking with various men. Must cost a mint for one of those, thought Hamish. And then he saw a familiar figure come into view. Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson! One of the men went up to her and bent down and whispered. She nodded and called one of the girls over. Hamish watched, transfixed, but the brief film ended.

  So that was what Mrs. Gillespie had on Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson, he thought, and Shona probably remembered that film.

  What about her Glasgow alibi?

  He decided to go straight down to Glasgow and see if Bella Robinson had returned.

  On the way out, he pleaded with Angela to look after his animals just one more time and then, deaf to her complaints, hurried to the Land Rover.

  He drove straight to Inverness airport and caught a plane to Glasgow. He hired a car at Glasgow airport and set out in the direction of Bearsden, getting lost a few times in Glasgow’s bewildering flyovers until he found the right route.

  As he braked to a stop outside The Croft, he saw a car parked in the space in front of the house. He went up and rang the bell.

  A small woman with dyed-brown hair and a heavily made-up face answered the door.

  She looked alarmed when she saw Hamish.

  “May I come in?” asked Hamish.

  “All right. What’s it about?”

  Hamish followed her into a living room furnished with a three·piece suite in white leather. A small crystal chandelier hung from the low ceiling, and a gas fire of fake coals hissed in the grate.

  He turned to face her. “Why did you lie about Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson staying with you?”

  “I didn’t know it was a police matter.” She had a voice which sounded as if it had been roughened over the years by whisky and cigarettes. “Crystal told me she was having an affair with a married man and his wife was getting suspicious. She said if the wife accused her of anything, she would say she had been staying with me, because she was going to spend the night with him at a hotel in Inverness.”

  “Didn’t it strike you as odd when you heard about the murder of that television researcher?”

  She twisted her heavily beringed hands and looked at the floor.

  “You’re younger than she is,” said Hamish. “Were you one of her girls at that club in Beauchamp Place? Don’t lie to me. I can find out.”

  “Yes, I was, and yes, I was frightened when I heard about the murder, so after the police had interviewed me, I cleared off.”

  “Is her name really Barret-Wilkinson?”

  “Yes, she married one of the punters. Did well for herself. Got a mint out of the divorce. I’d got out of the game with enough money to live comfortably. I wasn’t like the other girls. No drugs for me.”

  “Did you think Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson might have killed Shona Fraser?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  She sighed. “Sit down, won’t you?”

  Hamish took off his cap and sat down. Mrs. Fleming would love this white furniture, he thought.

  “It was in ‘93,” she said. “One of the punters wanted her. Crystal used to be on the game but was glad to get the post as a madam. She refused, but the owner, Freddie Ionedes, was in the club that night, and he ordered her to get on with it. I don’t know what the punter did to Crystal, but I heard her scream. Freddie ran upstairs. I heard him shouting, “Why did you kill him?” I couldn’t hear what Crystal replied. I was curious. I crept up the stairs. “You stupid tart,” Freddie was saying. “We’ll need to get rid of the body. I don’t want the police around here. I’ve got the half of Debrett’s downstairs.” I heard him coming to the door of the room, so I nipped back downstairs. I don’t know what they did with the body. After that, Crystal told me she was getting out of the life. The next thing I knew was six months later when she invited me to her wedding in the Chelsea registry office. A year later, one of the girls told me she had bumped into Crystal. She said Crystal had gone all tweedy and respectable. Crystal told her she was divorced and was going somewhere to start a new life and where nothing from her past could catch up with her. I should have known it was a lie when she told me she was having an affair. There’s nothing like being a working girl to put you off men for life.”

  “You’ll need to make a sworn statement,” said Hamish.

  “Will my past life come out? I’ve gone respectable, and I don’t want the neighbours to know.”

  “I’ll try to keep it quiet. A detective will be calling on you soon. Don’t run away again, or they’ll find you. And do not contact Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson, or we will arrest you. What was her n
ame before she married?”

  “Crystal Jackson.”

  ♦

  Hamish drove back to the airport, left the rented car, and caught the plane to Inverness. He had a sudden idea of how to clear up the murders, get back at Blair, and avoid any threat of promotion at the same time.

  He had the tape with him in the Land Rover. In his pocket was a powerful little tape recorder. He had recorded everything Bella had said.

  He went to police headquarters in Inverness and asked to speak to Inspector Cannon.

  He had to wait some time before she appeared. “What is it?” she asked harshly. “Come to gloat?”

  Hamish smiled. “How would you like to get your own back?”

  ♦

  In an interview room, Mary Cannon listened in growing excitement as Hamish described all he had found out about Crystal Barret-Wilkinson. She listened to his taped interview with Bella and then took him to another room with a video player and watched the tape.

  At last, she said, “It’s enough to get a warrant to search her house. But it’s still pretty circumstantial. If she gets a good lawyer, she could walk free or at least get a ‘not proven’ verdict.”

  “I have a suggestion to make,” said Hamish. “It might just work…”

  ♦

  Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson opened the door and looked haughtily at the tall policeman. “What is it now, Officer? It’s ten o’clock in the evening.”

  “I’d better come in,” said Hamish. “I have come to accuse you of the murders of Mrs. Gillespie and Shona Fraser.”

  “You’re mad. Oh, come in. This is rubbish.”

  In her sitting room, Hamish removed his cap and sat down and regarded her steadily.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “You’d best sit down.”

  She sat down in a chair facing him.

  “We have a videotape from Trant Television which shows you working as a madam at a club in Beauchamp Place in London. I also have this interview with Bella Robinson.”

  She listened while he played the tape, the many rings on her fingers digging into her clenched hands.

  “So,” she said when the tape finished, “I was a tart managing tarts, and it was a long time ago. I had nothing to do with the murders. The professor has confessed.”

  “Not to the murders, he hasn’t,” said Hamish. “Mrs. Gillespie recognised you from the television programme and blackmailed you. You’ve had a lot of luck. Not at first, mind. I think you tried to run her down, but that didn’t work, so you followed her to Moy Hall to the clay pigeon shoot and tried to kill her there. You found out her schedule and simply waited outside the professor’s for her. Maybe you’d decided to try to talk her out of it or even threaten her to keep quiet. Whatever she said drove you into a mad rage, and you struck her down with her bucket. Then Shona Fraser called on you. Maybe she’d just decided to go around everyone and do a bit of detecting on her own. She, too, recognised you. Maybe you heard her outside phoning me on her mobile. You drove towards Lochdubh. Maybe you’d seen that Land Rover parked up on the hill.”

  “What Land Rover?”

  “Geordie McArthur’s.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Hamish experienced a twinge of doubt. He felt she was telling the truth.

  “Okay. So you used your own car. Maybe you hid in the shadows by the police station until you saw her arrive, then you struck her down. You dragged her over to push her into the water, but the body fell into a rowing boat. You went down the stairs, but maybe you heard someone and cut the painter and let the boat drift off.”

  Hamish saw uneasily that she was beginning to relax.

  “And you have forensic proof to back up all your wild imaginings?”

  “We’ll get it. We’ll search this place from top to bottom.”

  “Let me get this straight. You say you’ve come here to arrest me for two murders, but you are only a village constable. There are no high-ranking police officers, no detectives. Is this flight of fancy all your own?”

  Hamish shuffled his boots. “It iss like this. I haff been working on my own. But I haff enough here to start a full investigation. It would save time if you came quietly.”

  “Oh, I may as well come with you to police headquarters and show you up for the fool you are.”

  She went over to the table where her handbag lay. She opened it and whipped out a gun and pointed it at Hamish.

  She laughed. “You should learn not to confront criminals on your own.”

  “So you did the murders?” Hamish regarded her steadily.

  “Yes, I did, but you’re never going to prove it because you aren’t going to walk out of here alive.”

  She shot Hamish Macbeth full in the chest and watched with satisfaction as he keeled over on the floor.

  ∨ Death of a Maid ∧

  10

  He was amazed how so impotent and grovelling insect as I (these were his expressions) could entertain such inhuman ideas.

  —Jonathan Swift

  Crystal Barret-Wilkinson kicked Hamish’s body savagely with her foot. “Now I’ve got to figure out how to get rid of you,” she said aloud. “I can’t go on being lucky. I could hardly believe no one had seen me when I bashed that nosy researcher. God, I need a drink.”

  She put down the gun and went to a side table laden with bottles.

  Then she screamed as her arms were wrenched behind her back and handcuffed. Mary Cannon cautioned her for the murders of Mrs. Gillespie and Shona Fraser. She had already telephoned for reinforcements.

  Hamish’s idea had been that Mary come in the back door of the house and stand listening as he tried to get a confession out of Crystal.

  Now Hamish Macbeth was dead, and Inspector Gannon would have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

  She thrust Crystal down into a chair and stood over her. “Stay where you are, you murdering bitch, until reinforcements arrive.”

  Crystal subsided meekly, and then suddenly her booted foot lashed out and caught Mary full in the stomach. Mary doubled over with pain and fell to her knees.

  And then Crystal heard a movement. Harnish Macbeth was getting unsteadily to his feet. She let out a scream of pure terror and ran for the door.

  Hamish followed in pursuit. Despite the Kevlar bulletproof vest he had been wearing – he had borrowed it from Inverness police headquarters while Mary was getting ready – the blow from the bullet had hurt like hell. He felt unsteady on his legs.

  Crystal fled down the road and onto the beach. She cast one anguished look behind her and ran straight into the sea, her wrists still handcuffed. Tearing off his sweater and vest while he ran, Hamish ran into the water after her. A Sutherland gale was blowing and whipping spray from the white crests of the waves into his eyes.

  He reached Crystal as she was plunging under the water and caught hold of her. She struggled and fought. He drew back his fist and socked her on the jaw and then dragged her unconscious body back to the shore.

  Mary came running down the beach to join him. “Is she dead?”

  “No, she’ll do,” said Hamish. “I had to knock her out.”

  “How did you survive that shot? I thought you were dead.”

  “I borrowed a bulletproof vest. But God, that shot made me feel sick.”

  “We’ve a lot of explaining to do,” said Mary. “Them in Strathbane won’t like me poaching on their territory and making them look like fools.”

  “They’ll have to live with it. I’ve got some dry clothes in the Land Rover,” said Hamish. “I’d better get them on.”

  Crystal began to come round. A stream of filthy oaths emerged from her mouth.

  “Here they come,” said Mary. She undipped her torch and flashed it.

  Police cars screeched to a halt in front of the beach.

  Blair was the first out. He came stumbling down the beach, his heavy face contorted with fury.

  “What’s all this about?” he shouted. He confronted Mary. “And what are you
doing on my patch?”

  Fortunately he was followed by Superintendent Daviot. “Let me handle this,” he said. “Explain yourself, Inspector.”

  Crystal was still letting out a stream of curses. “Take her into custody,” said Mary. “She is responsible for the deaths of Mrs. Gillespie and Shona Fraser, and we have all the proof you need. She also shot Macbeth, but he was wearing a bulletproof vest.”

  Daviot gave instructions to police officers who had joined them, and Crystal, kicking and screaming, was dragged off towards the police cars. Jimmy Anderson now joined them.

  “It’s like this,” said Mary, trying to remember the story she had rehearsed with Hamish. “I was checking security at Inverness airport when I saw Constable Macbeth getting off a Glasgow plane. He told me he had been to Glasgow to check on Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson’s alibi.”

  Her calm, steady voice went on until Daviot had all the facts.

  “What I want to know,” raged Blair when she finished, “is what this highland loon was doing going to Glasgow without permission?”

  “You wouldn’t have given me permission,” said Hamish. “You would have said that her alibi had already been covered by Strathclyde police.”

  “Let’s get off this beach,” said Daviot. “Good work, Hamish, and good work, Inspector.”

  ♦

  Back at police headquarters, Hamish, after he had typed out his statement, said to Mary, “I’ll be off.”

  “It’s your show. Don’t you want to sit in on the interrogation?”

  “I’d rather leave it all to you, Inspector.”

  Hamish drove happily back to Lochdubh. He felt as if a dark cloud of menace had been lifted from the whole Sutherland area.

  He called at Angela’s and told her and her husband the whole story. “You’d better let me have a look at you,” said Dr. Brodie.

  Hamish lifted up his sweater. “A nasty bruise, and it’ll look worse by tomorrow,” the doctor said. He prodded around. “No, no broken ribs. You’re a lucky man.”