Death of a Kingfisher

by M C Beaton

  “Aye, five hundred thousand. The Russian crooks have probably got it. Thanks to Witherspoon, we’ve begun to round up every drug dealer in the Highlands. But Andronovitch has fled the country.”

  “I wish I could get my hands on that Russian,” raged Hamish. “All those dead people! He’s probably got enough money salted away to keep him in comfort for the rest of his life.”

  “We’ll just need to be pragmatic,” said Jimmy. “The monster’s head has been cut off so all the little monsters are under arrest. The Highlands will be clear o’ drugs for a bit.”

  “Until the next monster arrives,” said Hamish.

  Ivan Andronovitch was in his fastness in the Ukraine, surrounded by guards. He sat in his office, going through facts his minions had gathered on every policeman in the Palfour case. One name kept sticking out. Hamish Macbeth. He found it hard to believe that a village policeman should have brought about his downfall, and he thirsted for revenge. He had arranged for Fern Palfour to fake drowning in the hope of getting rid of Macbeth. Although he hadn’t quite believed it at the time, he had been told that Macbeth was the most dangerous one. He sighed. “If you want a job done properly,” he said to the uncaring walls of his office, “do it yourself.”

  A month went by, a month in which Hamish still felt uneasy. The Highlands had settled down into their usual torpor. Press and tourists had gone and the only excitement in Lochdubh was the visit of a hellfire minister to take over while Mr. Wellington was recovering from swine flu. The villagers loved a short exposure to hell and damnation.

  Hamish called one day at Braikie Academy to see how the Palfour children were settling down. The headmaster, a rubicund Welshman called Parry Jones, assured Hamish that they were adjusting very well.

  “Have they any friends?” asked Hamish.

  “I’m not sure. But the school counsellor, Jane Anstruther, has been seeing them. I’ll phone her and see if she’s free.”

  Ten minutes later, Hamish was sitting in Jane’s office, sipping an excellent cup of coffee. Jane Anstruther was in her early thirties with a round rosy face and curly brown hair.

  “I don’t think either Olivia or Charles has any friends…yet. It’s still early days.”

  “The psychiatrist who saw them when they were in hospital said he was afraid they were a couple of psychopaths.”

  “I find that shocking,” she said angrily. “I know he has a good reputation, but to make such a judgement after all they had been through!”

  “I think he was shocked that they did not grieve for their parents or ask what had happened to their mother. They were only concerned to know if they could still inherit.”

  “I still find that understandable. The dramatic loss of both parents would leave them bereft and wondering what was to become of them. I gather, from reports, that the whole tragedy was set in motion by Ralph Palfour’s desire for money. He must have given his children an idea that only money was important. They are quiet and obedient and anxious to settle down. They have good foster parents, Jeannie and Hugh Mallard. They report that the children are no trouble at all. They still board at the school during the week and stay with the Mallards at the weekends.”

  “Have they been bullying any of the other children? Demanding money?”

  “Really, Mr. Macbeth, I am beginning to get very angry with you. Here are two innocent lambs, doing their best to come to terms with normal life. I don’t want you near them. In fact, I am going to complain to your superiors about your attitude. Now, goodbye!”

  Hamish decided he had better visit the Mallards right away before any orders came down from above to stop him doing so.

  The Mallards had a tidy bungalow in a new housing estate in Braikie. Their bungalow was called Samarkand. Hamish rang the doorbell, which chimed out a short burst of “Scotland the Brave.”

  The door was opened by a faded elderly woman wearing an old-fashioned print apron and carrying a mop. “Is Mrs. Mallard at home?” asked Hamish.

  “I am Mrs. Mallard. What’s up?”

  Hamish judged Mrs. Mallard to be somewhere in her sixties. Surely a younger, stronger woman should have been chosen to foster the Palfour children.

  “May I come in?”

  She stood aside then led the way into a cosy living room. Hamish removed his cap and sat down. She seated herself opposite him and looked at him with mild, innocent eyes.

  “Is your husband at home?”

  “He’s retired, but he does volunteer work in the charity shop. He’s all right, isn’t he?” she asked in sudden alarm.

  “Yes, this is just a social call to see how the children are getting along.”

  Her face cleared. “Oh, they’re just grand. We never had any children. Olivia and Charles are so good. I didn’t think children were that polite and considerate these days. In fact, I could wish they were a bit noisier. But the school counsellor told me it would take them a long while to get over the shock.”

  Hamish left feeling uneasy. He could not banish the feeling that somehow Charles and Olivia were waiting for something.

  Fiona McBean was a classmate of Olivia’s, and her parents were throwing a birthday party for her. To her dismay, her mother had insisted that she invite Olivia. “That poor lassie needs a bit of fun,” said the mother. In vain did Fiona protest that Olivia gave her the creeps. But she brightened at the thought that Olivia did not socialise with any of them. She would be bound to refuse. To her dismay, Olivia politely accepted the invitation. Not only that, but with eyes full of tears, she asked if she could bring her brother as well. Startled, but suddenly compassionate, Fiona agreed. “My little brother, Harry, will be there and he’s the same age as Charles so it’ll be company for him.”

  Delighted, Mrs. Mallard raided her small savings account to buy a pretty party dress for Olivia, not realising in her innocence that girls were more apt to wear T-shirts and torn jeans than party dresses.

  But Olivia thanked her sweetly, accepted a present of a Harry Potter book to give Fiona, and set off with Charles. She felt like a freak in her white dress. She wondered if very Protestant Mrs. Mallard had realised she had bought a confirmation dress.

  At the McBean’s, Olivia asked to use the bathroom. Once inside, she took off her coat, stripped off the dress, and put it in a bag after taking out jeans and a T-shirt. Then she went down to join the party.

  At one point, she murmured to Charles, “They won’t notice if you leave the room. Good luck!”

  Charles was glad that the McBeans were the sort of parents who believed even sixteen-year-olds should be monitored at all times and had organised games for them all. Sixteen-year-olds in that part of the Highlands were still regarded as children.

  Olivia hoped Charles would hurry because the party was rapidly dying, teenagers sulky at having to play stupid games. The party buffet was laid out in the adjoining room. Charles slipped out to where the bags he and Olivia had brought were in the hall. He took out a bottle of overproof Polish vodka, nipped into the dining room, and poured all the contents into the fruit punch before returning the empty bottle to his bag.

  At the back of the house, across from the kitchen, was what Mr. McBean proudly called “my den.” It was full of golfing trophies and old school photos. Charles quickly went through the desk until he found passports in the bottom drawer. He extracted Fiona’s and Harry’s and stuffed them in his pockets before slipping back into the party in time for the buffet.

  At first the McBeans were delighted that their party seemed to have taken a lively turn as the children demanded more and more punch. But then they started fighting and throwing food at one another. Olivia and Charles slipped quietly away.

  “Got them?” asked Olivia.

  “Got them,” agreed Charles.

  Two days later, Hamish had an urge to go and look at the hunting box. The house looked square, grim, grey, and deserted. But as he climbed down from the Land Rover, he could hear the sound of a vacuum. He knocked on the door. After some time, Mrs. McColl
answered it.

  “Still working here?” asked Hamish.

  “Aye, the lawyers have told me to keep the place clean until they decide what’s to be done wi’ the property. It’s a funny thing. But I miss old Mrs. Colchester. She was right crabby but she always paid by the day. She would trundle her chair along to the strong room and come back with the money. She swore me and Bertha Dunglass to secrecy.”

  “But the key was lodged with the bank!” exclaimed Hamish.

  “She didnae trust banks.”

  “Didn’t you tell the Palfours this? Or the police?”

  “She made us swear on the Bible. It doesn’t matter now somehow.”

  “I don’t remember there being any money mentioned in the inventory,” said Hamish. “Did you ever see where she got the money from in the strong room?”

  “No, we were never allowed to follow her when she went there.”

  Hamish stood deep in thought while Mrs. McColl looked at him impatiently. “Are ye going to stand there all day?” she asked at last. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Aye, go ahead,” said Hamish.

  He took out his phone and scrolled down the numbers logged on it until he came to the lawyer’s number and dialled. He waited impatiently to be put through to Mr. Strowthere. When he came on the line, Hamish asked, “When an inventory was taken of the strong room, was there any money there?”

  “No, just the valuables.”

  Hamish thanked them and rang off. Had Fern and Ralph Palfour known about the extra key? But he could have sworn they were genuinely upset to find some of the valuables gone. Had Mary known? But if she had, she wouldn’t have tried to blackmail Ralph Palfour.

  Maybe Mrs. Colchester had only kept a purse in the strong room with just enough money to pay the cleaners.

  Mrs. Mallard packed two suitcases for the Palfour children. A week before, they had given her a form to sign, allowing them to go on a school trip to Inverness and stay overnight. She told them to have a good time and waved them off.

  The school counsellor had been off work with a bad cold. When she returned to work and switched on her computer, she found that everything on it had been wiped clean. The few children she had counselled were all interviewed except the Palfour children. She was told they were both ill and that Mrs. Mallard had sent a sick note.

  She decided to call on them. She could not believe that a member of staff could have tampered with her computer. It couldn’t be a virus. She had an excellent virus protector.

  Mrs. Mallard looked surprised. “But they’re not ill,” she protested. “They’ve gone off on a school trip. They had a form for me to sign. A trip to Inverness with an overnight stay.”

  “There is no such trip,” said Jane. “I’d better phone Hamish Macbeth.”

  Hamish cursed when he heard the news. He suddenly felt sure he knew where the money from the strong room had gone. An alert was put out for Olivia and Charles Palfour. Mrs. Mallard confirmed that both had passports and that their passports were missing.

  Olivia and Charles settled back in their seats with sighs of relief on a Cyprus Turkish Airlines flight. They were travelling under the names of Fiona and Harry McBean. Fiona and Harry were black-haired and so they had dyed their hair black. “I nearly shat myself going through security in case they found the money,” said Olivia. “But we got through. Thank goodness the money was still buried in the garden.”

  “Are you sure there’s no extradition treaty with North Cyprus?” asked Charles.

  “None. I checked.”

  Hamish went to see Jane. “Have you checked your credit card?”

  “No, why?” she asked.

  “If the Palfour children were using your computer, it could be to book plane or train tickets.”

  “They couldn’t do that without my password. When I pay for anything online, my bank asks for a password to clear it.”

  “You don’t keep a note of your password, do you?”

  Jane blushed guiltily. “It’s in my address book.” She frantically began to search in her wallet. “My credit card’s gone!”

  “Phone your credit card people and see if anyone’s been using it.”

  He waited while Jane phoned. He heard her exclaim after she had identified herself by answering a series of security questions, “Oh, no. That’s awful. Someone has been using my credit card. Block it immediately.” She rang off.

  “Those villains!” she said to Hamish. “They booked two plane tickets on Cyprus Turkish Airlines.”

  “Under their own names?”

  “No, under the names of Fiona and Harry McBean. They are pupils at this school.”

  “Get them in here!”

  When Fiona and Harry came into the counsellor’s office, Hamish said, “Olivia and Charles Palfour are travelling under your names. Have you lost your passports?”

  “You’ll need to ask our dad,” said Fiona. “He keeps them in his desk. Oh, the Palfours were at my birthday party last week.”

  Hamish asked them for their home address, left the school, and set off.

  Mrs. McBean answered the door to him and looked shocked when he said that the Palfour children had probably stolen her children’s passports. She hurried to her husband’s desk only to confirm that the passports were gone.

  Hamish phoned police headquarters and put out an alert for the two Palfours, this time under the names of Fiona and Harry McBean.

  Jimmy phoned Hamish that evening to say that both had been on a Cyprus Turkish Airlines flight. There was no extradition treaty with North Cyprus, but they had opened negotiations with the Turkish Cypriot government. “And that’ll take forever,” he said gloomily.

  Hamish told him about the money from the strong room. “I wonder when they took it?” said Jimmy.

  “I think that precious pair are more cold-blooded than their parents. It wouldn’t surprise me if they slipped into the strong room and helped themselves while everyone was out on the terrace, looking at the dead woman’s body.”

  Olivia and Charles rented a small room in a back street in Kyrenia.

  “The first thing we have to do,” said Olivia, “is to pinch another couple of suitable passports. It’s coming up to Christmas so there should be a good few tourists around. We don’t want a couple who look like us. I need the passport of someone older and then I can disguise myself. With this black hair and a fake tan and some tarty clothes, I look a lot older. I’ll get down to the Dome Hotel this evening. You’d better stay here. They’ll be looking for a girl and boy. Scotland Yard have probably already got someone on the island looking for us.”

  “As long as Hamish Macbeth doesn’t decide to come,” said Charles. “I think that one can see through walls. I wish Andronovitch had got rid of him.”

  Olivia grinned. “All things are possible. I’ve got the Russian’s number. He owes us.”

  “Too risky,” said Charles. His face had gone wizened somehow, pinched with anxiety. “Have you got an e-mail for him?”

  “Yes, we could send him a coded message. His e-mail’s registered under an alias. He called me Little Flower. There’s an Internet café off the main drag. I’ll try there. I’ll log in a new mail account.”

  Olivia went down to the Dome Hotel that evening. She had returned to the cybercafé several times but there was no reply from the Russian. She had sent an e-mail saying, “Dear Daddy, Here in North Cyprus and need your help. Will be at the restaurant in the Dome Hotel in Kyrenia every evening. Little Flower.”

  She sat at her reserved table and looked around. The evening was mild and everyone was dining outside. A belly dancer was performing and a group of noisy English tourists was cheering her on.

  Olivia scanned the room, looking at faces, noticing handbags. She felt suddenly uneasy. It was going to be more difficult stealing passports than she had imagined. She would need to wait until some of them got well and truly drunk.

  A young man stood at the entrance, looking at a photograph of Olivia on his mobile phone. He h
ad been warned she might have tried to change her appearance. But she had a black mole on her left cheekbone.

  Then he saw Olivia sitting alone. Her black hair looked as if it had been dyed and there was that mole.

  He pulled up a chair at Olivia’s table and sat down. “I am here to help you,” he said in slightly accented English.

  “That was quick,” said Olivia.

  “I was over on the Greek side when I got the message and came as quickly as I could.”

  “How did you find me?” asked Olivia.

  “We have people who are good at finding out things. What is it you want?”

  “My brother and I need two passports. We want to move on.”

  “That will cost you a lot of money.”

  “We have a lot of money.”

  He waved away a hovering waiter. “Then tell me where you are staying. That we could not find out. I will meet you there to arrange photographs and details at ten tomorrow morning.”

  Olivia surveyed him with her flat grey eyes. He was swarthy with black hair and dark eyes. Suddenly cautious, she did not want to meet him at their little flat. Better to meet them where there would be other people.

  “We’ll meet you here,” she said, “in the bar.”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  He rose quickly and walked out of the restaurant.

  Olivia and Charles were waiting in the bar, promptly at ten the following morning.

  At ten minutes past ten, they were beginning to wonder whether he would show up when he appeared.

  “I have to take you to a place to get your photographs taken.”

  Olivia hesitated, suddenly nervous, but Charles said, “Let’s get it over with.”

  “First,” he said, “I want twenty thousand pounds.”