Death of a Kingfisher

by M C Beaton

  “Did no one think to search the minister?”

  “It’s Scotland. Ministers are God. No. He was carrying a Bible. He left it behind. The inside had been cut out and there were two empty miniatures of whisky in the cell. They died in agonies. Might be cyanide.”

  “Did no one hear their death throes?”

  “There was a lot of crying and banging but instructions had been given to leave them alone to sweat it out. We seem to be dealing with a gang.”

  “Or someone with enough money to bribe villains,” said Hamish. “Any results from that cigarette end?”

  “Too degraded to get anything.”

  Hamish waited patiently, drinking black coffee from cardboard cups until the CCTV tapes were delivered. Jimmy slotted them in and they both studied them.

  “No one seems to be starving on the streets of Strathbane,” murmured Hamish as one obese person after another lurched past on the screen.

  “Shut up and let me concentrate,” growled Jimmy.

  “So what’s the description of this fake minister?” asked Hamish. “What are we looking for?”

  “He was tall with red hair, a fat face, and thick glasses.”

  “A disguise,” said Hamish. “Pads in the cheeks and a wig.”

  “Probably.”

  “Hold it,” said Hamish suddenly. “Freeze it right there.”

  “What do you see?”

  “That boutique. Hilda’s Fashions. Just going in the door. A tall black figure. It’s black and white but that hair could be red. Can only see the back of him. I’m going round there.”

  Hamish was met at the doorway of the boutique by Hilda Merrilee, a small, fussy woman.

  “Thank goodness you came,” she said. “I’ve never seen such a barefaced theft in my life.”

  “What happened?”

  “This man came in…”

  “Description?”

  “Oh, let me see. Tall, soft-spoken, red hair and glasses.”

  “A dog collar?”

  “He was wearing a scarf.”

  “So what exactly happened?”

  “He said he was looking for a dress for his wife. He told me they were going to a wedding but that she was disabled and couldn’t shop for herself. He said she was tall and quite plump. He looked at several gowns and then because we had a few customers, he asked if he could take them into a changing room and study them at his leisure. I showed him into a changing room. Then I had to go into another changing room to help a customer. After a time, I realised he hadn’t come out. I went into the changing room. He had stolen one of our best gowns, a stole, and a big hat.”

  “What did the dress look like?”

  “It was pale blue chiffon, long. The stole was paisley pattern, and the hat was a straw cartwheel with red silk rose on it.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” said Hamish. He rushed back to police headquarters where he told Jimmy what had happened and said, “Run the tapes again and look for a tall woman.”

  They sat together and studied the CCTV camera that showed the front of the shop.

  “There!” exclaimed Hamish. It was a grainy picture of a tall figure, face hidden by a large straw hat, wearing a long dress and carrying a large carrier bag.

  “See how loose the dress hangs,” said Hamish. “He probably has his minister’s clothes in the bag and the red wig. See if you can track him.”

  The figure disappeared into Barry’s Superstore.

  “Let’s get round there,” said Hamish.

  In the security office at Barry’s Superstore, Hamish studied the shop’s security videos.

  “Slow down,” he ordered. “There he goes. Damn! As far as I remember, that’s in the direction of the toilets, and they aren’t covered.”

  He turned round and asked the security guard, “Is there a door at the back of the store?”

  “A fire door.”

  “Is it locked?”

  “No. Anyone can push down the bar and get out.”

  “Is the area outside covered by a camera?”

  “No,” said the guard. “Only the shop’s rubbish out there.”

  “Come on,” said Jimmy.

  They hurried out through the store. The fire door was slightly open. They went outside. Rows of bins in a small area. Nothing else.

  “I’ll get some men round to go through the bins,” said Jimmy. “He may have discarded the gown and we could get DNA from it.”

  “I think he’ll have thought of that,” said Hamish. “If I were him, I’d put everything in a bag weighted down with a brick and throw it into a peat bog. I think he had a car parked round here.”

  Jimmy glared at Hamish in frustration. “I think you should start checking the bins until I get some men round here.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Hamish gloomily.

  After Jimmy had gone, he halfheartedly searched the bins, being pretty sure he wouldn’t find anything. When four policemen arrived, he left them to it.

  He went back to police headquarters, hoping to have a look at some CCTV footage of the streets around the store, but Jimmy was now in a flaming temper and ordered him back to Lochdubh.

  Back at the police station, he was met by the rumble of the dishwasher and the roar of the television. He marched into his living room where Annie and Dick were cosily ensconced with cups of coffee.

  “Switch that off!” he roared.

  Dick hurriedly clicked off the television. “Haven’t you heard the latest?” demanded Hamish.

  “No,” said Annie. “There seemed to be nothing doing so we came back here.”

  Hamish told them what had happened. “Now, I want both of you to help me think,” he said. “If only the Palfours didn’t have such cast-iron alibis. They’re the ones with motive. They’re the ones with enough money to get people to do their dirty work.”

  “I’ve got some notes from a friend at the Yard in London,” said Annie, opening her handbag and pulling out a sheaf of notes. “Yes, Ralph Palfour was badly in debt. A second mortgage was taken out on the house in London. There is nothing but family pride to stop Palfour from selling the garden centre. A girl who used to work there said he had many offers to buy the place.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “Estate agents. Oh, and some Russian oligarch who was interested in the place. Wanted to build a mansion.”

  “Name?”

  “Let me see.” She consulted her notes. “Ivan Andronovitch. Made his money in oil. I looked him up. No criminal record.”

  “There we have power and money,” said Hamish. “He could have threatened the Palfours. What was this girl’s impression of Palfour?”

  “She said he was a good boss but weak and fussy. He was often heard saying that if his mother-in-law would just die, then all his troubles would be over.”

  “And did your friend at the Yard say they had found any sinister connection between Palfour and this Russian?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “I’d expect the press to be hammering at the door by now,” said Dick.

  “They’re all over at Strathbane but some of them will be along here soon. I’ve got to think. I’m going out for a walk.”

  “I’d better get back to Strathbane,” said Annie.

  “If you hear anything interesting, let me know,” said Hamish.

  Annie left. Dick switched on the television again. Hamish glared at him, stuffed a sheet of notes in his pocket, and then called to the dog and cat and went out to the waterfront.

  Hamish went into Patel’s grocery store to buy himself a cup of coffee. Mr. Patel was unpacking bales of fabric.

  “What’s this?” asked Hamish. “A new line?”

  “There’s a dressmaking class at the village hall. A lot o’ the women have decided to make their ain clothes,” said Mr. Patel.

  Hamish paid for a cup of coffee and went out and sat on a seat facing the loch. It was a grey misty day. The loch was like a sheet of metal. On the other side of the water, the forestry plantat
ion looked ragged and denuded. There had been a decline in the Scottish timber business in recent years with many more tress being felled than were being planted. Critics believed that the environmental opposition to closely planted conifers had led to more emphasis on native woodland.

  Two seals surfaced and swam along, breaking the flat grey of the loch and sending out long ripples of waves on either side. He drank his coffee and stared into space.

  “Dreaming, Hamish?” came Angela Brodie’s voice from behind him. She walked round and sat down next to him.

  Hamish told her of the latest development. “This is awful,” said Angela. “I feel as if all the nastiness of the cities has come north to plague us.”

  Dressmaking, thought Hamish suddenly. Hadn’t Charles Palfour said his mother had taken up dressmaking?

  “What’s this about a dressmaking class?” asked Hamish.

  Angela looked surprised. “There’s one tonight in the village hall, if you’re interested. It’s being run by the Currie sisters.”

  “Whit! Thon pair are an example of frump fashion.”

  “They just organise things. There’s a Polish maid from the hotel who’s a wizard.”

  “I might have a look at that,” said Hamish. “What time?”

  “Seven thirty. Planning on tailoring a new uniform?”

  “You never know,” said Hamish. “I’ll maybe see you later. I’ve got to walk and think.”

  With Angela staring after him, he set off, the dog and cat at his heels.

  He walked all the way to the Tommel Castle Hotel, hoping suddenly to talk to Priscilla, only to find that she had left without even leaving a message for him.

  He felt worried and depressed. Priscilla gone, Elspeth to get married, and all he had to show for a love life was a one-night stand with a married woman.

  He scrounged a cup of coffee and took it to a quiet corner of the hotel lounge and began to study his notes, hoping against hope that he could find something he had previously missed.

  What had Charles Palfour meant by that crack about dressmaking? Why had Fern Palfour been so alarmed that she had slapped him across the face? When Mary had been murdered, the Palfours had been staying in Inverness. They had been caught on a garage CCTV early the following morning as they made their way back to Braikie.

  He decided to stay hidden for the rest of the day, out of the way of the press, and then visit the village hall. But he had forgotten that the press would need places to stay. Mr. Johnson came in to warn him, and Hamish and his pets escaped by the kitchen door.

  He cut across the moors, not wanting to meet any of the press on the road. When he reached the back of the police station, he shoved up the kitchen window and climbed through. Sonsie and Lugs went round to the kitchen door and entered by the cat flap.

  Hamish could hear the noise of the television from the living room. He sighed and began to make himself a fry-up and cook liver for the dog and cat. He was damned if he was going to cook anything for Dick.

  But he should have known that Dick would not go hungry. Patel’s sold mutton pies and when Hamish eventually went into the sitting room and switched off the television, he noticed that Dick had a tray in front of him bearing tea and the remains of two pies.

  “Get your uniform on,” ordered Hamish. “We’re going to the village hall.”

  “Why?” asked Dick plaintively.

  “Oh, chust dae as you’re told,” snapped Hamish. “You make your way out the front and say ‘No comment’ to the press and meet me at the village hall.”

  When Hamish and Dick entered the village hall, Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s wife, approached them. “It’s grand to see two gentleman being interested in dressmaking,” she said.

  “Dick, here, is a transvestite,” said Hamish maliciously.

  “If you are here to make mischief, forget it,” boomed Mrs. Wellington. “You may stay if you sit down quietly. She’s about to begin.”

  A pretty Polish girl was standing at a long table with a pattern spread out on it.

  “Now, ladies,” she began, “I will first teach you how to follow a pattern.”

  She looked up as the door opened. The Currie sisters entered pushing an old-fashioned dressmaker’s dummy on wheels in front of them, their faces red with exertion.

  “This is the grand thing,” said Nessie.

  “Grand thing,” echoed the Greek chorus that was her twin.

  Hamish guessed the dummy was either Edwardian or Victorian. It had a bust like the figurehead on an old schooner and a wasp waist.

  “It is so kind of you,” said the Polish instructor diplomatically, “but I don’t think any of us these days has a figure like that.”

  “You mean you can’t use it?” demanded Nessie.

  “Maybe we’ll try later,” she said.

  Hamish stared at that dummy. His head started racing. The dummy was headless, but, he thought, put some sort of head on it and a wig and a hat, a coat and scarf say, put it in the front seat of a car, and it might show up on the CCTV as a real person. He got up abruptly and with Dick trotting after him returned to the police station.

  “Go on,” he said to Dick. “Watch your precious TV. I’ve got to think.”

  He went into the office and sat down. What if the two men had set up the chair lift, but it was Palfour who had lit the rocket? Somehow, the murder of Gloria was too violent and vicious for Ralph Palfour. And he certainly hadn’t poisoned the prisoners.

  But he could imagine a scenario where Mary knew something and tried to blackmail Palfour. How easy for Palfour to creep up behind her after arranging a meeting at the pool, strike her down, and then drown her.

  He switched on his computer and began to trawl through the reports. The Palfours had said that on the night of Mary’s murder, they had been staying at the Dancing Scotsman Hotel in Inverness. Hamish phoned the hotel and introduced himself to the manager.

  “When Mr. and Mrs. Palfour were staying with you,” he said, “was their room near a fire escape?”

  “Wait a minute and I’ll check,” said the manager.

  Hamish waited impatiently. At last the manager’s voice came back on the phone.

  “They were in room one hundred and sixty-three. It’s at the end of the second-floor corridor. Yes, there is access to a fire escape.”

  Hamish thanked him and rang off. The dog and cat were fast asleep after their long walk. He went out to the Land Rover and drove to Strathbane.

  Blair had fortunately gone home but Jimmy was still there, tired and rumpled and smelling of whisky. He tuned bloodshot eyes on Hamish and said, “What brings you?”

  Hamish sat down and patiently began to outline everything he had found out, from Charles Palfour’s remark about dressmaking to Scotland Yard’s discovery of a connection to a Russian who wanted to buy the nursery, and then to the idea that Ralph Palfour could have sneaked out of the hotel to kill Mary, while his wife drove back the next morning with the dressmaker’s dummy in the front seat made up to look like a man.

  “Och, Hamish,” said Jimmy wearily, “why on earth wouldn’t Palfour then just drive back to Inverness and sneak back to his room? And how did he get to Braikie if he left the car with his wife?”

  “I know, I know,” said Hamish impatiently. “But who else has a motive for the murder? He’s got a big people carrier. He could have stashed a motorbike in the back o’ it. Get a search warrant for their house and their vehicle. See if there’s a dressmaker’s dummy in the house and get forensics to search the car to see if there’s a trace of a motorbike.”

  “Hamish, hear this. Ye havenae a hope in hell. The Palfours have hired James Farquhar-Symondson. He’s a Freemason. So is Daviot. So dear James is rumbling about police harassment and Daviot has told us to back off.”

  “You mean I can’t do anything!”

  Jimmy chewed his knuckles. Then he took a half bottle of Scotch out of his top drawer and took a slug.

  “I’ve an idea,” he said. “Look, it’s the b
est I can come up with. You call on Palfour tomorrow as the sympathetic local bobby who just wants to know how they’re getting on. Check with the maids. Ask them if they’ve seen a dummy anywhere.”

  “Right,” said Hamish gloomily. “Meanwhile, I’d like to see the CCTV from that garage where they were supposed to be on the road back from Inverness.”

  Jimmy went away and then came back with a disk. “Help yourself.”

  Hamish studied the screen. The quality was not very good. There was Fern driving up. He froze the screen and focussed on the figure beside her. Baseball hat pulled down low and scarf over the lower part of the face. He sighed. It was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a dummy. He could only hope he could find out something the next day.

  After checking his notes in the morning, he told Dick to try to speak to the maids at home as it was their day off. Dick was to ask them if they had seen a dressmaker’s dummy anywhere in the house or had seen a motorbike.

  He told Dick to use his own car, a battered old Honda, and set out leaving the dog and cat behind.

  He was glad it was a weekday, which meant the children were in school. In a way, they unnerved him with their flat grey eyes and insolent faces.

  The first thing he noticed was that the Palfours had a new car, a large BMW. What had happened to the people carrier?

  Hamish rang the bell. After what seemed a long time, Ralph Palfour opened the door. “This is police harassment,” he shouted. “I’m calling my lawyer.”

  Hamish put a vacant expression on his face and said mildly, “Och, it iss nothing but the neighbourly visit. I chust wanted to see you were all right and that the press havenae been bothering you, sir.”

  Palfour visibly relaxed. “They were all round yesterday but our lawyer dealt with them.”

  “Thon’s a grand car,” said Hamish, grinning foolishly. “What happened to your old one?”

  “I sold it.”

  “Who to?”

  “A garage over in Dingwall.”

  “All the way there?” marvelled Hamish. “Now which garage would that be?”