Death of a Kingfisher

by M C Beaton

  “Indeed! The Fairy Glen woman?”

  “The same.”

  “But she’s married, isn’t she?”

  “There’s a rumour she’s getting a divorce. She claims to have the second sight.”

  “Pooh, and double pooh.”

  The window of the manager’s office overlooked the car park. “I think a couple of your friends are out there, waiting for a word.”

  Priscilla joined him at the window. Sonsie and Lugs were sitting next to her BMW.

  “How very odd,” said Priscilla. “What do you think they want?”

  “Those beasts give me the creeps. If they were human, I’d say they want you to get down to that restaurant and stop whatever is going on.”

  “They’re probably just hoping for a free handout from the kitchens.”

  As soon as she had driven off, Mr. Johnson phoned Dick at the police station. “She’s on her way with the cat and dog,” he said. “Clever of you to sneak them up here.”

  “How did you know Mary Leinster and Hamish were having dinner?” asked Dick.

  “As soon as they left the police station together, the jungle drums started beating. I thought if Priscilla felt obliged to take his pets back to him, it might throw a spanner in the works. He shouldn’t be cavorting around with a murder suspect and a married one at that.”

  Hamish was thinking pretty much the same thing. The restaurant was offering a cheap Recession Special, and the place was crowded. He was aware of curious and accusing eyes on him and his partner.

  Willie Lamont, the waiter, took some time to get round to take their order. He had just written it down when the door of the restaurant opened. Priscilla entered with the cat and dog. Sonsie jumped on Hamish’s back, pressed her furry chin on his shoulder, and glared balefully at Mary.

  “Get off!” said Hamish furiously. “Priscilla, why are you here? And why did you bring Sonsie and Lugs?”

  “I found them in the hotel car park. I was worried something might have happened to you, and Mr. Johnson told me where you were.” Willie was quickly drawing out another chair at the table for Priscilla. “Come along,” he said to Sonsie and Lugs. “Osso buco tonight.” The cat plopped down onto the floor and, followed by Lugs, disappeared into the kitchen.

  Hamish made the introductions. The two women surveyed each other. Mary was angry. Priscilla with her height and cool fair beauty was making her feel diminished.

  Willie came back and Priscilla gave her order. Hamish wanted to protest that she hadn’t been invited, until he quickly realised that her presence was restoring an air of respectability to his meeting with Mary.

  “Tell me all about it,” urged Priscilla. And Hamish, remembering how useful Priscilla had been as a sort of Watson in the past, began to outline everything he knew while Mary’s face began to register boredom.

  When Hamish had finished, Priscilla turned her attention to Mary. “It’s a horrible business. What do you plan to do with the money?”

  “We have to finish building the gift shop,” said Mary, becoming animated. “Then we will be able to take out full-colour advertisements in all the major magazines. A lot of the paths through the woods need to be gravelled. Then I thought a Fairy Fete would be a good idea with the local children dressed as pixies and little lights hung through the trees. Oh, all sorts of ideas.”

  “But the whole sorry business started with the death of the kingfisher and then the sabotage of the bridge,” said Priscilla. “Aren’t you frightened that someone is out to put a stop to the tourists coming to the glen?”

  “We’ll now maybe be able to take on more people to patrol the place at night. We can’t expect the present ones to work twenty-four hours. Some of the townspeople said they would patrol the glen but they didn’t turn up.”

  “Don’t you think the murder of Mrs. Colchester is somehow tied in with this?”

  Mary gave a tinkling little laugh. “I expected a nice meal with Hamish here,” she said. “I didn’t expect to be grilled.”

  The door of the restaurant opened and Dick strolled in. “I burnt the chops, sir,” he said to Hamish. “Oh, there doesn’t seem to be a free table.”

  “It’s all right,” said Willie, suddenly appearing. “It’s a good thing it’s the big round table. Hamish aye gets this table when he’s having dinner with Priscilla. Sit yourself down.”

  “Can’t we talk about anything other than this dreadful murder?” said Mary, smiling up at Hamish. She put a hand on his. He gently drew his own hand away.

  “It is verra hard to think o’ anything else in the middle of a murder enquiry,” said Hamish.

  “And here’s little me thinking it was my charms that lured you out for dinner,” said Mary.

  “Where is your husband this evening?” asked Priscilla sweetly. “As there are now so many of us, why don’t you ask him to join us?”

  Tears rolled down Mary’s cheeks and she gave a pathetic little sob. “W-we don’t get on. We’re thinking of getting a divorce.”

  “With a possible divorce case coming up,” said Priscilla, “it’s better not to be seen in the company of any other man until the proceedings are over.”

  “I’m going to powder my nose,” said Mary.

  “You were a bit hard on her, Priscilla,” said Hamish.

  “I think she’s making a fool of you.”

  “Well, you, more than anyone else, should know that that has happened to me before,” said Hamish angrily. “Aren’t you going to order anything to eat, Dick?”

  “No, I’ll just eat Mary’s.”

  “What!”

  “No point in wasting good food. She won’t be back.”

  Willie came up to the table. “Thon Mrs. Leinster walked right through the kitchen and out the back door.”

  Hamish half rose to his feet and then sank back down into his chair. He began for the first time to feel that in some way Mary was trying to manipulate him, and if that were the case, then why?

  “What about the Palfours?” asked Priscilla. “The children were abused at that school. What kind of parents just ignore that?”

  “They were both boarded,” said Hamish. “Husband and wife work in that nursery. They’ve got people running it for them at the moment. Parents sometimes send difficult children to schools like that just to get them out of the way.”

  “Meaning there might have been something wrong with the Palfour children before the abuse at the school?”

  “The police psychiatrist is working with them. Maybe he’ll come up with something. But a couple of kids wouldn’t have the expertise to make that rocket and then soup up the engine.”

  “Maybe. What is Mary Leinster’s background and how did she become such a power in Braikie?”

  “She was working with the council in Perth. She has a degree in environmental studies. When Lord Growther left the glen to Braikie, they didn’t do anything about it. But just before this new government, councils were going daft employing all sorts of people. They advertised for an environmental officer and Mary got the job. Her husband and his brother came up with her.”

  “Where she found them a contract to build the gift shop?”

  “That was approved by the council.”

  “I wonder why. I wonder if Mary flirted or worse with the provost and members of the council and then applied a little genteel blackmail.”

  “Priscilla!” exclaimed Hamish. “I am not a fool!”

  “I’ll give Mary Leinster this,” said Priscilla. “That one could fool any man.”

  Once back at the police station, Hamish rounded on Dick. “Those beasts didn’t get up to the hotel under their own steam. You drove them there. How did you know Priscilla was back?”

  “Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s wife, told me but she said not to tell you because it would only upset you. I’m sorry if I overstepped the mark, sir, but Mary Leinster frightens me. There’s something at the back of the eyes. Something like you see in the eyes of a bird o’ prey, or o’ a kingfisher spotting a
nice fat trout. Where are you off to now?” he asked as Hamish headed for the door.

  “I’m going up to have a look at that glen. I want peace and quiet to see the place for myself.”

  Chapter Six

  From the loan shieling of the misty island

  Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas—

  Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,

  And we in dreams behold the Hebrides!

  —Sir Walter Scott

  The long twilight, or gloaming, of a highland summer’s night when it never really gets dark surrounded Hamish as he sat down on a smooth rock by the pool. Everything was utterly silent, except for the rushing of the waterfall.

  He realised he had to have this time to be really alone. He liked Dick, but Hamish was used to his own company. Of course, Elspeth would point out acidly that he was married to his cat and dog.

  What on earth did he see in Mary Leinster? Perhaps it was because these days one did not come across such sheer femininity. Clothes, hair, perfume, and blue eyes, all supplied in an alluring package.

  Quite suddenly he fell into a dreamless sleep, deep and black as velvet. He awoke with a start with the early sun in his eyes and took a deep breath of clean air.

  The glen looked enchanting and enchanted. A thin veil of mist was rising above the pool, and little rainbows were dancing in the waterfall. He felt a surge of joy. It was like the beginning of the world before sin and evil. He could almost believe in such a place as the Garden of Eden before the snake.

  With the dawn chorus in his ears, he climbed up to the car park, surprised that he wasn’t feeling the least bit stiff.

  He was about get into his Land Rover when he remembered that Mrs. Colchester had been in the habit of visiting the pool alone at night. She had evidently stopped doing so before her murder.

  The very grotesque way in which the murder had been committed, he was sure now, had been a warning: a mafia-type warning to anyone in the know to keep their mouths shut. Jimmy had left a report in the notes to say that the two men who had come to service the lift had not been traced.

  He drove thoughtfully back to the police station. There was a message on his desk from Dick. “Mrs. Colchester is to be buried at her request on some island called Rosse. She evidently was born there. Body’s been released. Funeral tomorrow. Daviot wants us to go along and see who turns up.”

  Rosse, thought Hamish. Does anyone live there? He pulled down a map of the Western Isles. There was Rosse, slightly to the south of Tiree, not much more than a dot on the map.

  As he stared at the map, he began to wonder how long he could keep his police station. There were plans afoot to axe sixteen police stations in the north of Scotland, including the one at Nairn which had been built a year ago at a cost of just over one million pounds. He remembered a doctor saying to him cynically that if he ever wanted to know a hospital the government was about to close down, then look for the one that had just had a new ward built.

  And what would happen to his own beloved station? Or would he be now expected to police the whole of the north of Scotland?

  He roused Dick, made breakfast, and then phoned Jimmy and asked about the funeral arrangements. “I’ve told the Palfours I am sending you along,” said Jimmy. “They feel they need protection. No need to take Fraser with you. They’re setting out tomorrow with the coffin. Ferry to Tiree and then fishing boat to Rosse. The Palfours had to pay a whack to get a fisherman who’d take a coffin on board, let alone a woman. Superstitious lot.”

  “Does anyone live there?” asked Hamish.

  “Couple o’ old crofters. Brothers. Ezekiel and Abraham McSporran. Now, there’s a couple o’ names to conjure with. They were both married one time but the wives died and there were no children. They’re reputed to be a bit weird. You’re to take camping equipment. The minister in Tiree is putting up the Palfours but he says there’s no room for you. Mrs. Colchester’s father and mother lived there for a short time before he went over to the mainland.”

  “When do we all set off?”

  “Six o’clock tomorrow morning to catch the ferry from Oban.”

  “How’s the rest of the investigation going?”

  “For the rocket, anyone can buy potassium off the Internet and there’s potassium in fertiliser. You would think the Leinsters would be prime suspects, but they didn’t want their glen wrecked. The money the old woman left them goes into the trust, and the council auditors monitor it. Scotland Yard can’t dig up anything out o’ the London background.”

  “When did Mrs. Colchester arrive on the mainland?”

  “About the time o’ the ark. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Mackay, were crofters on Rosse but they found the life too harsh and moved to Strathbane. Father got a job in a slaughterhouse. Mrs. Colchester worked as a nurse in Strathbane and then moved to London. Worked at Guy’s Hospital and nursed Colchester when he had an operation to remove his appendix. Married him and became a wealthy woman.”

  “And the parents?”

  “They died soon after she was married. They weren’t invited to the wedding and then she never even went to their funerals. Got a reputation as being really cruel and nasty.”

  “Maybe,” said Hamish, “there’s someone we don’t know about. Maybe some other relative.”

  “Believe me, man, we’ve dug up the family tree by the roots and there isn’t anyone.”

  “What age was Colchester when he married?”

  “Thirty-eight?”

  “And the nurse?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “And Colchester was a wealthy man. Hadn’t he been married before?”

  “No, but he was engaged to a Miss Crystal Hunter, a socialite. She’s dead. Never mind, Hamish. Do your bit at the funeral.”

  A few people stood on their doorsteps in Braikie at dawn the following morning to watch the hearse bearing Mrs. Colchester’s body go by. The Palfours followed in their car and, behind them, Hamish in the Land Rover.

  As if in keeping with the solemnity of the occasion, a thin, greasy drizzle was falling as they boarded the car ferry at Oban. There is normally a beautiful view of the islands from Oban Bay, but on that morning everything was shrouded in a thin mist.

  Hamish would have liked to pass the journey by talking to the Palfours, but Ralph told him sharply to leave them alone in their grief.

  Glad that he had had the foresight to bring some paperbacks with him, Hamish settled down to read and pass the four-hour journey. The ferry ploughed on in the shelter of the Isle of Mull. Once past Ardnamurchan Point, the sun came out and Hamish left his book and went out to lean on the rail, looking up at the famous Ardnamurchan Lighthouse as the ferry pushed on towards the Island of Coll.

  The ferry stopped at Arinagour on Coll and after unloading passengers and cargo headed out for another hour’s journey to Gott Bay on Tiree.

  The Island of Tiree has more sunshine than anywhere else on the British Isles because it is extremely flat, parts of it inland being under sea level, and any bad weather just races over it. Hamish remembered that at some places on the island, you would think the whole of the Atlantic Ocean was going to come pouring in on you.

  A Church of Scotland minister, a Mr. McCluskey, was at the jetty to meet them. He was a tall, thin man with greying hair, a pleasant smile, and a lilting voice.

  He shook hands with the Palfours and then said to Hamish, “Geordie, along there on the Highland Queen, will take you over to Rosse today to get settled and we will be over tomorrow for the funeral. It is an odd sort of arrangement. I suggested to your superior, Detective Chief Inspector Blair, that we could surely find you some accommodation on the island, but he said you were used to roughing it and they were economising on their police budget.”

  Hamish thanked him although he mentally cursed Blair. He unloaded his camping equipment from the Land Rover, and carrying his rolled-up tent under his arm, with the rest of his equipment packed into a heavy backpack, he set off for the Highland Qu
een, where he was hailed by the weather-beaten, grizzled skipper.

  “I’m going to charge you lot a fair whack for this,” said Geordie as his “crew” consisting of one sullen youth helped Hamish aboard. “It iss the rare bad luck to take a wumman aboard let alone a coffin and that iss what I’ll be doing the morrow.”

  “I’ll need to go into Scarinish first and get some food,” said Hamish. “I don’t suppose there’s any on Rosse?”

  “Sheep. That’s all.”

  Hamish got off the boat and shopped quickly, trying not to buy too heavy a load. When he returned to the fishing boat, he stored his groceries in his backpack.

  “What are the McSporrans like?” asked Hamish as the boat began to chug out of the harbour.

  “I do not believe in the gossip,” said Geordie. “It iss the devil’s work.”

  Hamish contented himself by watching the blue and green water. A dolphin rose up beside the boat in a high arc and disappeared beneath the waves.

  The Island of Rosse soon appeared, at first looking nothing more than a rocky outcrop sticking up above the waves, but as they approached, Hamish began to make out a stone jetty and, behind it up on a grassy hillside, a white croft house, the grass surrounding it dotted with sheep.

  Hamish had planned to tip the skipper, but once his goods were unloaded, the boat backed out and roared back in the direction of Tiree without Geordie having said one word.

  He heaved his backpack onto his shoulders, set off up the hill for the nearest of the cottages, and knocked at the door.

  A very small man opened the door to him, a troll-like figure. His nut-brown face was crisscrossed with wrinkles. His thick grey hair was wild and shaggy, and he had hair sprouting from his nostrils and his ears.

  “Good day,” said Hamish politely. “Can you suggest a good place where I can pitch my tent?”

  Small flat grey eyes looked up at him. They stared at each other in silence. Hamish sighed and repeated his question in Gaelic.