Hamish Macbeth 20 (2004) - Death of a Poison Pen

by M C Beaton

  She rose and went over to a table by the window and shuffled through the contents of a battered shoebox and drew out a photograph. She handed it to Hamish.

  “That was just after I left school.”

  In the photo, Jessie’s hair was thick and brown and her figure fuller. The girl in the photograph glowed with a strong sexuality.

  “Do you think Miss McAndrew was attracted to you?”

  “Oh, sure.” Jessie delicately picked a piece of tobacco off her tongue. “I didnae ken about such women then. She was always stroking my hair. She said I should go to university. Then she said she was soon due to retire and she would come with me and look after me. I began to feel…threatened.”

  “Did you tell your parents?”

  “They wouldnae listen. “You do what she says and you’ll get somewhere,” they said. Ma works on the buses and Dad drives. They were fired up by her. I tried to tell them she was faking my exams and that when I sat my Highers, I’d be in trouble because the papers would go out to the examining board and I’d be exposed as not all that bright. Who knows? I may have done better if she hadn’t been breathing down my neck.”

  Jenny looked at her with warm sympathy. “So you decided to rebel.”

  “Aye, you can say that. Left her house one night—the old bag had tried to kiss me—and I felt mean and baffled and scunnert. I went into the pub instead o’ going home. I’d never had alcohol before. There were a lot of the local lads there. They said an Alco pop wouldn’t hurt and it tasted sweet, just like soda, and it felt great and I had a lot mair. The evening began to get blurry, but it was warm and free, the feeling, so I let them buy me mair booze. I can only remember the rest of the night in flashes, but at one point I was round the back o’ the pub with my skirt up round my chest and wan o’ them fiddling with me. And that was it.” A slow tear ran down her cheek. “In the pudding club first time and cannae even remember who the father was. Ma and Dad hit the roof. Social security got me this place.”

  Hamish cleared his throat. “Look, Jessie, could you have any idea Miss McAndrew might have been the poison-pen writer?”

  “No, but I should ha’ known.”

  “Why?”

  “She sent me wan. I have it here.”

  She rose and went back to the shoebox and drew out a letter, the writing now familiar to Hamish.

  It said: “You have ruined your life, you silly slut. Now you are prostituting yourself and you will end in the gutter where you belong. You threw away a golden chance at life.”

  Hamish’s mouth tightened in distaste.

  “What does she mean about prostituting yourself?”

  “I got a taste for the booze. It keeps me going. Costs, though. I got a fellow comes around. Nothing serious, but he pays me a bit.”

  “Oh, that wicked, wicked woman,” said Jenny, bursting into tears.

  Hamish looked at her impatiently, beginning to regret bringing her along.

  “Let’s keep to practicalities,” he said severely as Jenny blew her small nose. “Are you addicted to the booze?”

  “If you mean, can I stop? No.”

  “I think there’s an AA meeting in Braikie.”

  “Oh, them. God botherers.”

  “They’re not religious. You can believe or not believe, but they’ve taken a lot o’ people out o’ the gutter. You phone them up, they’ll send someone round. You can take it or leave it. No one will force you.”

  Jenny had dried her eyes and had found a phone book and was looking it up. “I’ll just phone Strathbane and they’ll put me in touch with someone here,” she said eagerly.

  “Jenny!” admonished Hamish. “Chust leave it. The lassie has to do it for herself.”

  Undeterred, Jenny wrote down the number and handed it to Jessie.

  “Jessie,” said Hamish, “here’s my card. Phone me if you hear anything or think of anything.”

  Outside, he said to Jenny, “This is not going to work. I admit you ask some good questions and people take to you, but you cannot let your feelings get involved in a police case.”

  “It’s very hard,” said Jenny.

  “Furthermore, if Blair gets wind of you going around with me, I’ll be in deep trouble.”

  “Where do we go now?”

  “I’m thinking. So many suspects. It’s nearly lunchtime. I’d like to go to the school and see if any of the teachers have thought of anything. Why don’t you wait outside and have a chat with anyone around?”

  Jenny pouted. “Can’t I come in with you?”

  “No, leave this one to me.”

  The playground was full of noisy children. Hamish noticed that a woman he guessed to be a volunteer was supervising them. With any hope he would find all the teachers in the staff room. He had decided it would be better to interview them all together than separately in their homes.

  By dint of opening several doors, he found the staff room. They were all there: Maisie Hart, Henrietta McNicol, Jamie Burns, and Matthew Eskdale, all puffing on cigarettes.

  Four dismayed faces looked up through the haze of cigarette smoke as Hamish entered the dingy room with its institution-green walls and scarred and chipped furniture.

  “Chust continuing my enquiries,” said Hamish, made nervous by the sight of teachers, reminding him of his own schooldays.

  He found an empty chair and sat down and took out his notebook. Four wary pairs of eyes stared at him.

  “Now, to begin, I need more of your impressions of Miss McAndrew. Were you aware that she might have been faking the results of exam papers?”

  “I thought once that she might,” said Maisie cautiously. “I mean, what was that girl—Jessie—that’s it.” She looked round at the others. “She had brilliant results in the school exams, but when it came to the ones that were sent out to the examining board, she barely scraped through.”

  “I thought that was exam nerves,” protested Henrietta. “That’s what Miss McAndrew said.”

  “She was a bit of a bully,” said Matthew Eskdale. “Made Jamie’s life hell. Didn’t she, Jamie?”

  “I’ve already told this policeman that,” said Jamie, “so there’s no use trying to move the focus off yourself. You sucked up to her something awful.”

  “No, I didn’t!”

  “You did.”

  “Gentlemen,” protested Hamish, “we’re getting nowhere.”

  Outside the school, Jenny was approached by a swarthy boy. “You come here with that copper?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Jenny. “I’m helping him.”

  “My name’s Geordie Cromarty and I’m helping him as well.”

  “How clever of you,” said Jenny, batting her eyelashes at him.

  Geordie eyed her speculatively. He and his pals had often discussed the charms and experience of older women, each one dreaming of a Mrs. Robinson who would deftly remove their unwanted virginity, but the ladies of Braikie were built on formidable lines and some still wore corsets and so they had given up hope. But here in front of him in the school playground, sitting on the wall and showing lengths of black-stockinged leg, was a beauty. He puffed out his chest. “I could tell him a few things.”

  “Like what?” breathed Jenny, gazing at him with well-feigned admiration.

  “Like Miss Beattie was seen going to Miss McAndrew’s house three days afore she was killed.”

  “Heavens! Are you sure? Who told you?”

  “I have my sources. But it’s true.”

  “If I were the police,” said Jenny cautiously, “I would insist you named your source.”

  “Aye, but I promised not to tell.”

  “Say you told me. I wouldn’t tell Hamish.” Jenny crossed her fingers behind her back.

  The school bell shrilled out. “Break’s over,” shouted the volunteer. “Form orderly lines. You over there, Geordie, get in line.”

  “Gotta go,” he said. “Meet me after school.”

  “Where?”

  “Out o’ town. Just past Miss McAndrew’s
house, there’s a big rock on the shore. See you there.”

  He swaggered off to join the others.

  Jenny saw Hamish emerge and decided quickly to keep Geordie’s news to herself.

  “Nothing,” said Hamish, coming up to her. “Nothing new. She was a bully who had favourites and who forged exam papers for them.”

  “I think I saw that inspector of yours,” lied Jenny. “Thickset man in plain clothes came past in a police car. It slowed down and he glared out the window at me.”

  “Blair. You’d better make yourself scarce,” said Hamish. “I’ll tell you later if I’ve found anything.”

  To his relief, Jenny just grinned and swung down from the wall. “I’ll check with you later,” she said.

  Hamish decided to have a look at the post office. Although Billy Mackay had inherited the business, they would need to send someone in to cope with the pensions and deliver the mail.

  To his surprise, he found the whole shop open for business and old Mrs. Harris behind the shop counter while a stranger manned the post office section.

  “What’s going on?” he asked her.

  “The lawyers phoned me and said that Billy had asked me to run the shop until they released him. I used to work in a grocery when I was young, so it isnae that difficult. It’s fun.” Her elderly eyes sparkled. “They’ve got a mannie to cope wi’ the letters and pensions and stuff. I’ve to get paid. Imagine that! Me earning at my age.”

  “Great,” said Hamish. “You still on for Friday night?”

  “Looking forward to it. Oh, more customers.”

  Hamish retreated to the street, where he bumped into Elspeth. “So what have you dug up?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell you over a drink. I don’t come cheap.”

  When they sat down at a corner table in the dingy pub with their drinks, Hamish found himself wishing that Elspeth would dress better, and then he instantly chastised himself for being one of those men who couldn’t accept people just as they were.

  Elspeth was wearing her favourite battered tweed fishing hat, a man’s anorak and corduroy trousers, and a black T·shirt which had been washed so many times it was almost grey.

  Still, what did he expect her to wear while reporting around a Highland village? Stilettos and a frock?

  “What have you found out?” he asked.

  “Rumour and counter-rumour. Nothing concrete.”

  “I suppose they still think Billy did it.”

  “No, as a matter of fact. They say if he’d killed his nagging wife, they could understand that. He always was a popular figure. Help anyone.”

  “So what are you going to write?”

  “As it’s for a national, a colour piece about the drama of murders invading a respectable Highland village. The dark-shadow-of-suspicion yackety-yak. Mrs. Harris is working in the post office shop. Is she still going to see that film with us?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been seen going around with Jenny tailing you in that ridiculous car of hers. Why do you put up with her?”

  “She’s got a knack of making people open up.”

  “Oh, really? I thought her interest was in you, although Pat Mallone seems quite keen.”

  “Elspeth, I will use anyone who might help me solve this case. We could take her along with us to this movie. I think she would be good with the old people.”

  Elspeth’s silver eyes narrowed a fraction. “I thought we were going together.”

  “Come on, Elspeth. You invited yourself and I am taking Mrs. Harris. Hardly a hot date.”

  “I wasn’t competing, copper. I feel in my bones something is going to happen there and I don’t want bouncy, wide-eyed Jenny around.”

  “Oh, have it your way,” said Hamish.

  “Anyway, you really are only taking her around in the hope it gets back to Priscilla,” said Elspeth.

  “I am not! I’m going back on my beat.”

  Hamish stood up, stiff with outrage.

  Elspeth looked amused. “See you tomorrow.”

  Jenny waited in the shadow of the rock on the beach. The sky had clouded over and a thin drizzle was starting to fall. Great sluggish waves rose and fell and fanned out on the pebbles of the beach. A seagull cried mournfully overhead.

  “Psst!”

  Jenny jumped nervously. Geordie appeared around the other side of the rock.

  “You startled me. So what have you got to tell me?”

  Geordie swaggered. “It’ll cost ye.”

  “How much?”

  “A kiss.”

  “Oh, go on with you. You’re only a kid.”

  He looked at her stubbornly.

  Jenny sighed. She thought briefly of London, red buses, restaurants, crowds. Civilisation. What was she doing on a draughty Highland beach with an amorous schoolboy?

  “Oh, all right,” she said. “Pucker up.”

  Geordie planted a kiss on her mouth, grinding his lips against her own. “There!” he said, releasing her. “I bet you’ve never been kissed like that before.”

  And I hope never again, thought Jenny, longing to take out a handkerchief and scrub her lips. “So what do you know?” she asked.

  “Someone I know saw herself…”

  “Miss Beattie?”

  “Aye, her. Three days afore the murder. She went into Miss McAndrew’s house.”

  “You told me that. What more?”

  “After half an hour, she came out and she was crying sore. Fair broken up, she was.”

  “Can’t you tell me the name of the witness?”

  “I cannae. Mair than my life’s worth,” said Geordie dramatically.

  They could hear the sound of a car coming along the road. It screeched to a halt. “I’ve left my car out on the road,” said Jenny, and then found she was talking to the empty air. Geordie had disappeared.

  “Jenny!” called Hamish’s voice.

  She walked round the rock and back up to the road.

  “What were you doing down there?” asked Hamish.

  “I just stopped to look at the sea.”

  “Aye, a grand day for it,” said Hamish sarcastically. He walked down to the rock and round to where Jenny had been standing. She followed him reluctantly. Hamish stooped and picked something up off the ground and held it to his nose. He stared down at her. “This is a cannabis roach. Not smoked today. There are several others lying about. So, Jenny Ogilvie, what were you doing hanging around what looks like the local lads’ cannabis smoking area?”

  “I was meeting someone who had information.”

  “Who?”

  “I promised not to say.”

  “Your lipstick’s smeared.”

  Jenny blushed and took out a handkerchief and scrubbed her mouth. Hamish surveyed her. “I think you’ve been kissing someone. Pat Mallone isn’t around today and as far as I know, you don’t know anyone else. Now, who would want a kiss for information? A randy schoolboy? Come on, Jenny. Out wi’ it.”

  “It was Geordie Cromarty.”

  “And what did he have to say?”

  “Oh, very well. He said someone he knows, and he won’t say who, saw Miss Beattie going into Miss McAndrew’s house three days before the murder.”

  “Which murder?”

  “Oh, I didn’t ask. Her own, I guess. Anyway, Miss Beattie came out half an hour later and she was crying.”

  Hamish frowned. “I thought maybe Miss Beattie was murdered because she had something on Miss McAndrew. But it looks the other way round. I’ll get back to Lochdubh and phone Jimmy Anderson and see what they’ve dug up on Miss Beattie’s past. Are you going to stay here and romance the local talent?”

  “No, I’ll follow you.”

  Once back at the police station after collecting Lugs, Hamish phoned up Strathbane and asked to speak to Jimmy Anderson. He was told that the detective was out on duty. He had just replaced the receiver when there was a knock at the kitchen door. He opened it to find Jimmy himself standing there.

  “Any whi
sky in the cupboard?” asked Jimmy.

  “Some, but don’t drink it all.”

  Jimmy sat down at the kitchen table as Hamish lifted a bottle of whisky and a glass down from the kitchen cupboard. “It’s cold in here,” complained Jimmy.

  “I’m just back. I’ll light the fire.”

  Lugs rattled his empty water bowl on the floor. Hamish filled it up with water, shoved logs and paper and firelighter into the stove, and threw in a match. It lit with a roar.

  “Now we’ve got you comfortable, I want information out of you.”

  “Not drinking?” asked Jimmy, pouring himself a hefty measure.

  “Don’t feel like it. I’ll have coffee.” Hamish filled up a kettle and put it on top of the stove and sat down opposite Jimmy.

  “What do you want to know?” asked Jimmy. “I’m sure you’ve ferreted out more than us.”

  “I want to know about Miss Beattie. Was she born in Braikie, or did she live here all her life?”

  “She was born in 1966 in Perth of middle·class parents. Father owned a garage and did well in a modest way. His wife was a housekeeper. Both staunch Free Presbyterians.”

  “Wait a bit. When she was murdered, she must have only been thirty-six. Man, I thought she was older. I mean, all that grey hair. Mind you, the last time I saw her, she was hanging. So when did she come to Braikie?”

  “She came about sixteen years ago, as a young woman. Did cleaning jobs at first and then heard the old postmistress was about to retire and went and trained for the job and got it. She must have had some private money because she bought the place. At first it was just a post office, but then she expanded it into a shop and got various locals to help out.”

  “I cannae understand it,” complained Hamish. “Here I was thinking she was an older woman. In fact, I think that’s what most of them believed, and yet the older ones must have known her age if she came here as a young woman.”

  Hamish began to feel irritated with himself. He should have asked questions about Miss Beattie himself.

  “What’s Billy been saying?”

  “They’ve released him.”

  “Does no one tell me anything?”

  Jimmy looked amused. “They don’t usually have to.”

  “It’s chust that I’ve got the long, long list of suspects. I have something for you. Someone saw Miss Beattie visit Miss McAndrew’s cottage three days afore she was murdered. She stayed half an hour and came out crying.”