Death of a Charming Man hm-10

by M C Beaton

  “No, it seemed all very quiet. What did Ailsa say?”

  “She started by cursing Annie Duncan for having chosen Nancy Macleod as the lead, with herself as the Principal Boy. Ailsa felt she herself should have got one of the main parts. She said that great lump Nancy would make a mockery of the whole thing. Up starts Jimmy Macleod and says his wife has the best voice between here and Inverness, and furthermore, his wife is a lady and not given to whoring around; and I had to stop Jock from hitting him, but Ailsa jeered, ‘That’s what you think,’ and then suddenly everyone decided to go home. One minute the room was full of men, and the next they had all faded out into the night.”

  “Goodness, Hamish, if you had been at the manse, you would have thought them all the best of friends. It was only when we left that Edie began to complain like mad about Annie Duncan’s high-handedness, and yet there was nothing high-handed in Annie’s behaviour. They seemed to placidly accept all her suggestions.”

  “Well, as you know, there is always a sort of tradition about letting the minister’s wife have her way.”

  “There’s just one little thing.” Priscilla hesitated. “Go on,” said Hamish morosely. “Anything’ll help, we haven’t got much.”

  “When Edie and I arrived at the manse, we heard the minister and his wife having a row.”

  “Could you hear what it was about?”

  “No, couldn’t make out the words. The walls are thick.”

  “And the reverend didn’t join you ladies at any point?”

  Priscilla shook her head. “So where do we go from here?” asked Hamish.

  “For a start, there’s the first rehearsal tomorrow afternoon in the community hall. The scripts haven’t arrived yet, but Annie’s going to run through the musical numbers.”

  “You go,” said Hamish, “and maybe I’ll drop in. Perhaps we should pay a visit on Heather…both of us. I’d like to know what you make of her.”

  ∨ Death of a Charming Man ∧

  9

  Retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.

  —William Congreve

  Heather was singing to herself and scrubbing the kitchen floor when Priscilla and Hamish arrived the following morning. She looked up and saw Priscilla and primmed her lips in disapproval.

  “We are on the telephone,” she said, getting to her feet.

  “We don’t like people chust dropping in. This is still a house of grief.”

  “Just a few more questions,” said Hamish easily.

  “Why?” demanded Heather, wiping soapy hands on her apron. “You’re supposed to be here on holiday.”

  “I don’t suppose you believe that any more than anyone else,” said Hamish.

  Heather’s eyes slanted at Priscilla. “What’s she doing here?”

  “Manners!” said Hamish sharply.

  Heather folded her arms. “It’s my house and I can say what I like.”

  “I’ll go outside and take a look around,” said Priscilla quickly.

  As soon as she had gone, Heather appeared to relax. “A coffee-or a cup of tea, Mr. Macbeth?” she asked in housewifely tones.

  “Nothing at the moment,” said Hamish. “You’re a bit hard on Priscilla, Heather. What’s she ever done to you?”

  “She’s, a woman,” said Heather curtly. “Don’t like women much. They’re cruel.”

  “Will, there are some nice women around. Mrs. Duncan has been verra kind to you, surely.”

  “Oh, aye. She’s the minister’s wife and it’s her duty to be nice to people. Do you know I am to play the part of the cat in the pantomime?”

  “No,” said Hamish, that being a piece of news Priscilla had failed to tell him. “Will you like that?” She wrinkled her brow. “It might be fine.” She curled her small hands into imitation paws and pretended to wash her face. “Aye, I reckon I could do that verra well.”

  “So,” said Hamish, pulling out a chair and sitting down, “yon go here and there about the village without anyone noticing you much. You must hear things. Do you know any woman who was…er…involved with Peter Hynd?” Her eyes were suddenly like cold steel. “You mean who wass he screwing? My ain mither, for one.”

  “Heather, you’re verra young. How can you know that?”

  “Because I followed her up to his cottage one night,” she said wearily. She sat down at the table opposite him and rested her small pointed chin on her hands.

  “B-but how could you know?” asked Hamish, blushing a deep red.

  “I heard them.”

  “But not saw. You might have been mistaken. You’re only twelve.”

  She jerked her head towards the television set in the corner.

  “I see and hear it all on that.”

  Oh, the lost days of youth, thought Hamish bitterly. Aloud he said, “It must have been hard for you.”

  “Peter Hynd was an evil man,” she said. “Really evil. I’m glad he’s gone.”

  “But you no longer think he was killed?”

  “That wass chust a fancy.”

  Hamish felt he should not be asking one so young the next question, but who else in this village was going to tell him?

  “Heather,” he said, “do you know which of the others were sleeping with Peter Hynd?”

  She held up a slim hand and ticked off the names on her fingers: “Nancy Macleod, Ailsa Kennedy, Alice MacQueen, and Edie Aubrey.”

  “I cannae believe that! Edie! Come on, Heather.”

  “The uglier they come, the harder they fall,” said Heather. “Now, Da will be back from the fishing and I’ve got to get his dinner on. I will speak to you again, Mr. Macbeth.”

  “And I hope I’m strong enough to take it,” said Hamish after he had rejoined Priscilla and repeated what Heather had said. “What do you make of her?”

  “I think she is a remarkably strong and self-disciplined little girl who is delighted to run the house and have her father to herself,” said Priscilla. “Of course, I may be wrong. It could all be a front. The child could be teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown for all I know. But those women she listed! And her own mother. I can hardly believe it of Edie.”

  “There’s one way to find out,” Hamish pointed out. “I could ask Edie point-blank. All she has to do is to deny it.”

  “You know,” said Priscilla, “we’re barking up me wrong tree. Let’s look at this another way around. Let’s assume Peter Hynd was murdered and Betty Baxter was murdered. Who had the best motive? Why, the husband, Harry. Harry finds out Betty has been unfaithful to him. He murders Peter Hynd and gets rid of Peter’s belongings. The place is full of peatbogs where stuff, including Peter’s body and Peter’s car, could be sunk without trace. The murder twists his brain further and so he calls Betty and somehow gets her to think he is Peter, don’t ask me how, follows her down to the beach, and breaks her neck. He tells Heather to back him up on the frozen-cod story and she, being happy to have her mother out of the way,-goes along with it.”

  “Except for one thing,” Hamish pointed out. “Harry Baxter has a cast-iron alibi.”

  “Does he?” asked Priscilla eagerly. “We assume Betty was killed about seven in the morning. What if it were earlier? A post-mortem cannot tell the exact time of death. The fishing boats often come in around six.”

  “Thought about that. Harry Baxter went straight to the bar. The bar opens up for the fishermen.”

  Priscilla frowned. “Lochdubh is a close-knit community. Gossip from Drim filters over there. Harry would be pitied by his cronies. Say he did not go out fishing or say he did not go to the bar, would his friends cover up for him to get him out of trouble?”

  Hamish’s hazel eyes gleamed. “They might at that. They don’t like Blair – who does? – and as they would think that poor old Harry would never do such a thing in a hundred years, they just could have decided to give him an alibi.”

  “There’s Archie Maclean’s wife,” said Priscilla. “She waits on the harbour for the boats to come in. Wh
ich boat is Harry on again?”

  “The Silver Princess. Archie’s boat.”

  “Let’s go to Lochdubh,” urged Priscilla. “We can get some sandwiches for lunch at the hotel. I never realized before how inconvenient this bed-and-breakfast-only arrangement is. How do the poor holiday-makers fare when its pouring wet?”

  “Goodness knows,” said Hamish. “I suppose they just drive around looking at wet sheep and eating in cafes until it’s safe to return. Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s wife in Lochdubh, she ran bed-and-breakfast for a wee while, and her guests had to be out of the house at nine in the morning whatever the weather and were ordered not to return until eight-thirty in the evening.”

  “Let’s go to Lochdubh anyway. It’ll be a relief to get out of here.”

  It was a crisp, cold day. Both felt it amazing that two such villages as Lochdubh and Drim could exist in the north of Scotland, two such vastly different villages. Lochdubh as usual was full of the sounds of life.

  “Let’s try Archie first,” suggested Hamish.

  Mrs. Maclean was scrubbing the kitchen counters. Not for her the easy road of plastic or laminated surface. She attacked the pine wood with a scrubbing brush with tremendous ferocity and looked up in disapproval when Hamish popped his head around the door. “I’m busy,” she snapped.

  Hamish strolled into the kitchen, with Priscilla after him. “Just a few questions,” he said.

  “You’re not in uniform,” said Mrs. Maclean, throwing the scrubbing brush in the bucket and rubbing her red hands dry on a towel that looked as if it had been starched.

  “This is unofficial. Where’s Archie? Asleep?”

  “Drinking, as usual.”

  “We’ll get round to him in a minute. Now, you go down to the harbour to see the boat come in, don’t you?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “And what if I do? That’s no crime. Like to see my man come in safely.”

  “Aye, well. The day Betty Baxter over at Drim was killed, can you remember if Harry Baxter was out on the boat the night before?”

  She turned away and took the brush out of the bucket and fell to scrubbing again. “I cannae remember one morning from another,” she said.

  “But that would be the morning the police came around asking the fishermen questions,” said Priscilla. “And as Archie is skipper of the boat Harry was supposed to be on, they must have called here. Surely you remember that?”

  “I tell you, I’m too busy,” she said, scrubbing unabated.

  “They didnae see me. They asked Archie.”

  Hamish raised his eyes to heaven. “Come on, Priscilla,” he said. “We’d better ask Archie.”

  He glanced back in the kitchen window as they walked through the garden. “She’s on the phone already,” he said. “Let’s get to the bar fast.”

  The fishermen were divided into two groups, those who drank and those who did not drink at all, and the ones who drank could sink leg-fills of the stuff, and so most of them were still there. As they came in, Archie was just replacing the receiver on the phone on the bar.

  “Hullo, Hamish,” he said sheepishly. “What are you having?”

  “Nothing at the moment. Too early. Archie, as your wife has just told you, we’re checking up on Harry Baxter’s alibi.”

  “And chust when did herself join the polis?” Archie jerked his head in Priscilla’s direction. He looked uncomfortable, but then Archie always looked uncomfortable. The locals swore his wife boiled his clothes. His pullover was riding up somewhere about his midriff and was so felted, it looked like cloth.

  “Doa’t get cheeky with me,” said Hamish. “Come on, Archie, I’m going to keep after you and keep after you until I get at the truth.”

  “And I’m telling you Harry wass out on the boat, chust like I told them great pudding, Blair.”

  “And I’m telling you that I’m not only going to ask your crew but the other fishermen and the women who wait for them and everyone else in Lochdubh, and then I’ll have great pleasure in hauling you off to prison for impeding the police in their inquiries, bearing false witness, and downright lying.”

  “Och, Hamish, ye wouldna.”

  “That I would.”

  Archie looked wildly around and then picked up his drink. “Come ower in the corner.”

  They followed him over to a small rickety, beer-stained table in the corner and sat down.

  “It iss like this,” wheedled Archie, “we all heard how this foreigner was playing fast and loose wi’ the wimmin o’ Drim. Harry did show up for the fishing. It wass a bad night and we decided to go home early. We got into harbour about five, and Harry, he went straight home. Och, he had told us about his missus going a bit off her head and dying her hair and whatnot. When wee Heather phoned us and said it would be better to say her da wass in the bar, we thocht it was all right.”

  “Heather!”

  “Herself said how her ma had been found dead on the beach wi’ her neck broke in a fall. She says how it wass the accident but that the polis haeing the nasty minds might say her da pushed Betty. She wass crying hard, and if a wee bitty lassie thinks her da didnae do it, it iss surely all right to protect the man.”

  “I think we’d best be going back to have a word with wee Heather,” said Priscilla in a thin voice.

  “Don’t be too hard on the lassie,” wheedled Archie. “Herself hass had a bad shock.”

  “And so have I,” said Hamish grimly after he and Priscilla had had a brief lunch of sandwiches and coffee and were heading back to Drim. “Heather is beginning to appear quite the Lady Macbeth. Maybe she put her father up to it.”

  “And maybe she’s just a frightened little girl doing her best to protect her father,” said Priscilla. “I’ll go over to the community hall when we get there and join the rehearsal. You had best see Heather on your own.”

  “I’ll see Harry too,” said Hamish. “There’s no fishing tonight, so he’ll be up and about by now. He must have gone straight home this morning.”

  As Hamish approached the Baxters’ cottage, Heather was standing outside and he knew all at once that she was waiting for him and cursed the invention of the telephone. Of course Archie would have phoned her as soon as they had left the bar.

  “Come in, Mr. Macbeth,” she said formally. “Da’s in the kitchen.”

  Hamish ducked his head and went inside. “Now, Harry,” he said, “this is the bad business. Don’t you see how it looks?”

  Harry Baxter was sitting with a mug of coffee between his gnarled hands. “I didnae know rightly what I wass doing, Hamish,” he said. “Heather told me what she had done and it seemed safest to go along with it. But what does it matter? It’s all over now. It wass the accident. Can’t you see how bad it is for me, for Heather, for you to go over it and over it, keeping it green?”

  “Tell me about the phone call Betty got,” said Hamish.

  “I heard her go to the phone. She chust said ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ and then, “I’ll see you.” When she came back in, her face was all lit up. She said it was Edie. I lost ma rag and started to shout. When I woke up later, she had her hair all blonded up again. That’s when I struck her. I said I knew that Peter Hynd had come back and had arranged to meet her. She paid me no heed. She said if I ever raised my hand to her again, she would leave me for good.”

  “You came straight back from the fishing. Did you go looking for her?” asked Hamish.

  “No,” he mumbled. “I wass that fed up, I chust went to my bed and went to sleep. The next thing I knew, the neighbours were round saying kids had found her body on the beach.”

  “It’s no use me asking Heather to confirm your story,” said Hamish wearily. “Look, answer this honestly. Did any of the locals see anything of Peter Hynd around the village the day your wife died or the day before?”

  Harry shook his head. “I asked and asked,” he said. “But no one’s seen hide nor hair of the man since he left.”

  “And did anyone actually see him leave?” />
  Again Harry shook his head. “And I asked about that as well,” he said. “God, I wanted more than anything in the world to make sure that wass the last o’ him. He’d gone all right, but no one saw him leave.”

  Hamish felt as if his brain were full of cobwebs when he left. If he stood back from the case and considered the fact that Peter Hynd might just have packed up and left…There was all the evidence for that. He had put his house on the market before he had disappeared. Betty, having got a taste for extra-marital affairs, could have gone out to meet someone else, someone from the village, and she could have tripped and fallen onto the rocks. Hamish frowned. But she hadn’t been carrying a handbag, nor had her hands been in her pockets, so why hadn’t she put out her hands to save herself? He should have reprimanded Heather, but somehow he could not bring himself to do so. He wished briefly he were a policeman like Blair and in Drim officially and he could harass the suspects without worrying about their feelings. Blair would have no difficulty, say, in approaching Edie and saying something tactful like; “So ye let Hynd get his leg over?”

  He sighed and went down to the community hall. To his surprise when he entered, he saw the small figure of Heather.

  She must have cut across the fields in her usual quick and silent way to get ahead of him. A massive woman was sitting at the piano. Nancy began to sing like Priscilla, Hamish was amazed at the purity and beauty of her voice. Annie Duncan joined her and began to sing as well, her voice deeper than Nancy’s. A spattering of applause from the women greeted the end of the song and Hamish, looking around, could see no sign of the bitter animosity that must lurk under each bosom. But then, that was the Highland way. He sat down next to Priscilla. “Going well?” he asked. “On the face of it,” said Priscilla. “Annie got the script this morning and went over to Strathbane and got it photocopied. She’s a good organizer. They might not like her choices, but it’s my belief they’ll all knuckle down and do what she says. Oh, one piece of gossip from the woman at the piano, Mrs. Denby, who cleans the manse. She says that the minister is dead set against theatricals and told Annie she was to drop the idea and Annie told him she would do no such thing. Mrs. Denby says she’s never heard them having rows before, but they’re having them almost every day now. Seems like Callum Duncan is the kind who likes his wife to be a sort of glorified servant, and ‘Yes, sir, no sir,’ and suddenly Annie’s having none of it and is rebelling at the slighest thing, telling him to make his own bloody tea when he summons her to the study and tells her to fetch him a cup, things like that.”