Hamish Macbeth 12 (1996) - Death of a Macho Man

by M C Beaton

  “Well, we cannae dae any mair but put in a report,” said Sergeant Macgregor sourly, thinking of the paperwork and what Strathbane would say about all these policemen charging overtime looking for a supposed murderer. Hamish arrived back at the police station at ten that night. The phone in the office was shrilling away and he was tempted not to answer it. At last he reluctantly picked it up. Blair’s voice snarled down the line. “Look here, pillock, stop trying to screw up my nicely solved case by wasting police time saying someone’s trying to murder you because you know better than me.”

  “I don’t think Beck murdered Duggan,” said Hamish wearily.

  “Well, it’s time you did. In fact, I did you a favour. I told Daviot your poor auld brain is a wee bit strained these days and you need a break. Take a week off, he says. I say, do it.”

  Hamish opened his mouth to protest and then closed it again. Here was a perfect chance to go to Glasgow. He had the money and now he had the time.

  “All right,” he said meekly.

  “Tell Macgregor over in Cnothan to cover for ye,” said Blair, and rang off.

  Hamish dialled Sergeant Macgregor’s number. “Oh, the hell with it,” said Macgregor when he heard Hamish’s request. “I don’t know why they bother keeping you on the force, and that’s a fact.”

  “Anything up?” asked Hamish, hearing an odd note in the sergeant’s voice.

  Macgregor looked moodily at the shiny surface of his desk, where a single rifle bullet lay. A small boy had picked it up out of the heather at the top of Ben Loss, just where Hamish Macbeth had said he was shot at, and had brought it to Cnothan police station ten minutes before Hamish’s call. But if he told Macbeth, then it would mean more paperwork. And anyway, it was probably from a deer rifle and had been lying there for ages. Besides, Blair had let him know forcibly that he considered the murder case of Randy Duggan solved and closed.

  Macgregor picked up the bullet and then tossed it into the waste-basket. “Nothing’s up,” he said. “Good night to you.”

  Hamish wearily ran a hot bath, stripped and climbed into it and promptly fell asleep, waking to find the water stone cold.

  Cursing, he climbed out, aching in every bone, and towelled himself down. He went through to bed. The last thing he heard before he fell asleep again was a rhythmic pattering on the window.

  Rain had returned to Lochdubh.

  §

  He awoke the following morning, thinking that he should pack up and head south to Glasgow. But there was something nagging at the back of his brain. And why go to Glasgow when the murderer was surely still around Lochdubh? And yet, in Randy’s background lay the vital clue to the identity of the murderer. Then the fact that had been niggling away at him suddenly sprang into his brain and he cursed himself for a fool. Blair had said that Rosie Draly had been married and divorced ten years before. Yet Mrs. Beck had given the impression that her sister had never married. Bob Beck had said nothing about any husband. He scampered through to the police office in his pyjamas and dialled Mrs. Beck’s number. With any luck she would be back in London and not yet at work.

  Mrs. Beck’s sharp voice answered the phone. “This is Police Constable Hamish Macbeth in Lochdubh,” began Hamish.

  “Why don’t you stop persecuting me?” said Mrs. Beck. “Haven’t I suffered enough? My husband a double murderer! I’m afraid to face the neighbours.”

  “It’s just one wee thing,” said Hamish soothingly. “Your sister was married?”

  “That wasn’t a marriage!”

  “Well, was she married, or wasn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who to? When? Where?”

  “Let me see, it would be in nineteen eighty-five. I didn’t go to the wedding. It was in Inverness.”

  Hamish said patiently, although he felt like shouting at her, “What was the name of the man she married?”

  “It was a Henry Beale. He was a journalist on the Inverness Dotty.”

  “And when were they divorced?”

  “He filed for divorce two days after the wedding.” Her voice was full of bitter satisfaction. “That’s why I never think of Rosie having been married.”

  “Have you an address for him?”

  “Wait a bit.”

  And so Hamish waited, listening to the far-away sounds of Willesden. The windows must have been open, for he heard traffic passing and children playing. Then she came back on the line. “Number 423, Tipsel Road.”

  “Thanks,” said Hamish quickly, after writing down the address. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything else.”

  He sat back and studied the address. Going to Inverness would mean precious time taken off his free week. But he could not ignore the fact that Rosie had been married, however briefly. She had managed to drive Bob Beck to murder. It was a long shot, but could this ex still have strong feelings for her, could he have decided she was having an affair with Randy and killed him? It just had to be checked out. Also, there was still the enigma that had been Rosie. Had she really known anything about Randy’s background?

  He packed a suitcase, deciding to drive to Inverness and, if there was nothing interesting there, drive on to Glasgow.

  He wished it would stop raining. Nothing had had a chance to dry out. The air outside, he noticed as he slung his case into the Land Rover, was muggy and close. His bones ached abominably after the hill run. He felt weary in mind and body. He wished the sun would shine again and this wretched case would be solved. He hesitated for just a moment before climbing into the driving seat. How easy it would be to let it go. Beck had murdered Rosie. Why not let him take the rap for the murder of Duggan? But the murderer was still here, polluting the very air of Lochdubh, and he would never be able to find out who it was unless he found out exactly who Randy Duggan had been.

  All the long way down to Inverness he turned over what he knew about the case in his mind. Perhaps the only reason he was really going to Glasgow was in the hope that there would be something in Duggan’s background which meant that the murderer came from outside, that the murderer would not turn out to be someone in the village whom he knew.

  Inverness was busier than ever. Where did they all come from? he marvelled, as he left his Land Rover in the multistorey by the bus station. Crowds everywhere, shopping, shopping, shopping, while the dingy seagulls screamed overhead. He walked up the Castle Wynd. The statue of Flora Macdonald still stared out blindly looking for the return of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

  The office of the Inverness Daily was to be found up a stone staircase between two shops. It had a small circulation and ran to only two or three pages of mostly local news. A prize sheep, for example, took precedence over any atrocity in Bosnia.

  In a large dusty room were two reporters and two typists, hammering away at computers. Hamish asked for Henry Beale, half expecting to be told the man was either dead or had moved on. A typist with her hair gelled into spikes said laconically, “Isnae here. Sheep sales at Lairg.”

  Hamish left quickly and weaved his way through the crowds back to where the Land Rover was parked. Now he had a weary wet drive back to Lairg. He took the Stride Pass after leaving Inverness, through Bonar Bridge, and then up through the heathery hills to Lairg.

  The annual Lairg sheep sale was a huge event, the biggest sheep sale in Europe, and as he approached he realized with a sinking heart that there would be plenty of police on duty. He remembered he had a crofter friend in Lairg called Iain Seaton. He, Hamish, was officially on holiday and if asked, he could say he was looking for Iain. The air was full of the cries of sheep. There was a hectic air, almost of gambling fever, as each crofter hoped for a good price. A lot of them were dressed in the sort of clothes that people often believed only incomers, trying to be Highland, affected: knee-breeches, lovat socks, brogues, kilt jacket and tall stick. Hamish went into the shed where the bidding was going on and scanned the crowd. He did not know what Beale looked like but Hamish usually found reporters easily recognizable, as reporters, how
ever Highland, carried about with them the same raffish air of their counterparts in London. And then he spotted a man at the edge of the ring, staring with weary boredom out of a pair of bloodshot eyes. He had an air of slightly drunken resentment as if he felt he were meant for better things and better places than the Lairg sheep sale. Hamish then spotted other reporter types nearby, but for some reason he could not explain, he felt sure the man with the bloodshot eyes was Henry Beale. He waited patiently until he saw Beale say something to the photographer next to him and then start edging his way out.

  Hamish was across the ring from him but he felt sure that Beale would make straight for the bar.

  Sure enough, that was where he found him. It was a sort of cafe-cum-bar, selling coffee, tea, beer, whisky, hamburgers and bacon sandwiches.

  Hamish saw Beale’s broad tweed back and tapped him on the shoulder. “What d’ye want?” demanded Beale, swinging round. Hamish was not in uniform. “Mr. Beale? I wonder if might hae a word.”

  “Oh, aye, but wait till I get a drink or I’ll never get one, not with this crowd.” Beale ordered three whiskies and when he was served poured them into the one glass. Hamish ordered one as well and then they shuffled outside into the soft rain, all the tables being taken. “I never bother to get water in this,” said Beale gloomily. “There’s enough o’ the stuff falling out the sky.”

  “I am PC Hamish Macbeth from Lochdubh,” began Hamish.

  “So why the plain clothes?”

  Hamish thought quickly. “I am assigned to the CID for this case.”

  “What case? Someone buggering their sheep?” sneered Beale. He took a gulp of whisky.

  “Rosie Draly,” said Hamish quietly.

  “You’ve got someone for that,” he said in a low voice, his drunken pugnacity suddenly leaving him.

  “Aye, but we’re just tying up the loose ends.”

  Beale gazed mournfully out at the milling throng. “You’ve already questioned me,” he said. Of course Strathbane would have questioned him, thought Hamish.

  “No one seems to have given us a verra clear picture of what Rosie Draly was really like,” said Hamish. “Could you talk about her for a little?”

  He gave a sigh. “Come over to my car,” said Beale. “This rain’s getting to me.”

  He led the way across the road to where a rusting old Volvo station wagon stood with a press sign in its window.

  He unlocked the doors. Hamish got in the passenger seat.

  “So,” said Beale, after climbing carefully in the other side so as not to spill any of his drink, “what can I tell you that havenae told the others?” No use asking him where he had been on the night of the murder. That would have been covered.

  “How did you meet her?”

  “She was giving a talk to some writers’ circle in Inverness on creative writing. Why do they call fiction creative writing? What’s uncreative writing?”

  “Lairg sheep sale?”

  “Aye, you could say that.”

  Beale took a sip of his drink before saying, “I wanted just a few paragraphs for the paper. We wouldnae normally have touched it but the editor’s wife was a member of the writers’ circle. Rosie talked a load of crud. She went on in Open-University-speak about linear progression. Know what she meant? The plot, man, the bloody plot. I remember thinking, why didn’t the silly bitch say so?”

  “Anyway, I was all set to escape at the end when the editor’s wife insisted on introducing us and then left me with her over the tea and buns. She smiled at me and said those magic words, ‘I’ve got a bottle of Scotch back in my hotel room.’”

  “So of course I went with her. Well, she filled me up with Scotch and then she said, ‘I want you to marry me.’ I got such a fright I nearly sobered up. I wanted to lie, to say that I was married already, but she went on talking. She said she had good contacts in newspapers in London and could advance my career, she said she had a good income. And so on. And the more she talked, the more I realized how lonely I was. I’d been married before but she’d run off and left me. I drank more and thought Rosie really looked a bit of all right. We didn’t go to bed and I said yes, I’d marry her. And three weeks later and only meeting for a few lunches and dinners, we were married. I don’t think I was sober for a moment. She paid for everything. She’d said a honeymoon wasn’t necessary, she’d just move in with me. After the wedding we’d go and get her stuff from Glasgow. I sobered up all right on the wedding night. She wouldnae let me near her. She said it was too soon. Give her time. When she went to sleep, I got up to see if there was any whisky left. I found a letter to her sister she had been writing and hadn’t finished and it was all about, ‘You thought I couldn’t get married, did you? Well, this is just to let you know…’ That sort of crap. I sat down and had a long diought. I realized the bitch had coerced me into marriage to get even with this sister. I faced her with it next day and she didn’t say anything, just sat and stared at me. I began to get scared of her. I thought she had a slate loose. I said either she make it a proper marriage, that is sleep with me, or get lost, and she said in a prim little voice—I’ll never forget—‘Then you had better file for a divorce.’”

  There was a heavy silence while Beale nursed his glass and stared out at the rain.

  Hamish turned the scene over in his mind and then said softly, “So you struck her.”

  “How did you know that!”

  “What any man in those circumstances would do,” said Hamish, who could not envisage raising his hand to any woman.

  “Aye, well I slapped her about a bit and then I got drunk and then I went to see a lawyer. When I got back, she’d gone land so had the letter to her sister.

  “From what I gathered from the police, she had in fact married me just to prove something to her sister. Och, women!” He drained his glass, choked and wiped his mouth. He made restless movements as if to leave. Hamish fished in the capacious pocket of his waxed coat and produced a half-bottle of whisky he had had the forethought to buy in Inverness. He unscrewed the top and filled Beale’s glass right up. “Thank you,” said Beale.

  “I hope I’m not keeping you from the sheep sale.”

  “Och, no. The usual. I find out who got the highest price and then run a wee bit about the other prices. I’ve been doing it for years. That’s where Rosie got me. Money. Promise of security. Someone to warm my slippers in my old age. What was up wi’ her?”

  “Her agent thought she might be lesbian, although there is no proof of that at all.”

  “God, I wish there were some proof. Know what I mean? I’ve never felt so rejected and humiliated in my life! I could have killed her.”

  Another silence. The rain, increasing in force, drummed on thereof of the car.

  “Someone murdered Duggan,” said Hamish quietly.

  “Here! What d’ye mean? Beck did it.”

  “I don’t think so. I think Beck wanted to get even with his wife. He had done the one murder. Why not confess to the other? The police are all too happy to have it all wrapped up. What do you think?”

  “I never knew Duggan.” His eyes were sharp. “So you think it was someone else?”

  “Aye. Did Rosie ever contact you again? Did she ever hint she might know something about this Duggan?”

  “Never heard a word from the bitch and didn’t want to.”

  Hamish, seeing he had finished his drink, poured him another, felt obliged to tell him to be sure and sober up before he drove back to Inverness, and then left him. Afterwards, he was to think that the rain must have affected his brain. It did not dawn on him at the time that he had told a reporter that he did not believe that Beck had murdered Duggan.

  §

  Blair was summoned to Superintendent Peter Daviot’s office the following morning. Mr. Daviot had a copy of the Inverness Daily spread out on his desk. “Have you seen this?” demanded the superintendent in a thin voice.

  “No, sir,” said Blair curiously, wondering what a paper which specialized in stories
no less dramatic man ‘Beauty Ferret Bites Housewife’ could contain that should be so upsetting.

  “Macbeth has been shooting his mouth off to some reporter called Beale about how he is looking for the murderer of Duggan, how he does not believe that Beck did it. Dammit, isn’t that the very Beale who was married to Rosie Draly? This is sub judice, apart from anything else. Where the hell is the bastard?”

  “We gave him a week off.”

  “Then get him and bring him back, and I don’t care if it takes every man on the force to do it.”

  Blair went out with a solemn face, but once outside began to whistle a jaunty tune. Macbeth was in deep shit. Life was good.

  An hour later, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, icily splendid and splendidly null, faced Blair and Anderson and Macnab in the office of the Tommel Castle Hotel. No, she did not have the faintest idea where Hamish Macbeth had gone. No, she could not even guess. Now, they were very busy, so if there was nothing else…? In a fury, Blair crashed around Lochdubh, bullying and threatening. Then he went over to Cnothan to see Sergeant Macgregor. Hamish might have gone to see his stand-in.

  Sergeant Macgregor had not seen the Inverness Daily, so when Blair said curdy, “Macbeth is missing. Have you seen him? Any idea where he is?” the sergeant suddenly thought guiltily of that spent rifle bullet lying in his waste-basket. If Macbeth was found dead and that wee boy came forward to tell the police about the rifle bullet he would be in trouble. He eptitiously pulled the waste-paper basket forward with his foot. “It’s funny you should say that,” he said. “I hae something here I was just going to phone you about.” He bent down jerked open the bottom drawer and then scrabbled quickly the waste-paper basket straightening up, holding out the bullet. “A wee boy found this up on Ben Loss where Hamish he was shot at. I would hae reported it right away, but you said Macbeth was making it up.”

  Blair stared at that bullet. The policeman in him warred with the man who would have liked to ignore the whole thing.

  “What,” he demanded wrathfully, “are you doing handling the thing with your great fat, stupid fingers? Anderson, take it from him and put it in an envelope.”