Death of a Charming Man

by Beaton, M. C.

  He crept into the flat and made his way to his room. He undressed and washed and climbed into bed. Sounds of noisy activity were coming from the next room. He pulled the blankets over his head and wished he were back in the police station in Lochdubh.

  In the morning he went down to Westminster School. He marvelled that such a quiet backwater could exist in the heart of London. The various school houses were grouped around a quadrangle, Little Dean’s. Virginia creeper flamed on the old walls of Ashburnham House. Boys in the school uniform of charcoal-grey suit and plain blue tie crossed and recrossed Little Dean’s on their way to and from classes. One of them directed him to the registrar’s office.

  He patiently explained to the registrar his name, profession, and interest in Peter Hynd. Files were checked and then the registrar said, ‘The best thing you can do is to pay a visit on Peter’s old housemaster. He left two years ago and is living in Madingley Road in Cambridge. Here’s the address. His name is Mr James Heath.’

  Cambridge! Hamish was tempted to forget about the whole thing and return to Lochdubh. Still …

  ‘How do I get there?’ he asked.

  Armed with instructions, he took the tube from St James’s to Liverpool Street Station and caught the Cambridge train. With the aid of a map drawn for him by the registrar, he walked from the station at Cambridge to Madingley Road. He began to worry that he should have phoned first. In fact, he could probably just have interviewed this Mr Heath on the phone. He found the address, a big Victorian building divided into flats, and pressed the bell over a neat card marked ‘J. Heath.’

  To his relief, a buzzer sounded and he went into a large dark hall checkered with coloured light from the stained-glass panel on the door. An authoritative voice called, ‘Up here. First landing.’

  Hamish went up the stairs. Mr Heath was waiting for him. He was a thin, spare man with a clever, humorous face. Hamish rapidly explained he was from the Sutherland police and wanted to make certain inquiries about Peter Hynd. Mr Heath threw him a quizzical look but said, ‘Come in. Sit yourself down. Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea,’ said Hamish, thinking he had drunk enough coffee the night before to last him a lifetime.

  While the ex-housemaster made tea, Hamish crossed the book-lined room and stood by the window and looked across to the spires of Cambridge. The rattling of teacups made him turn round as Mr Heath came in, carrying a loaded tray which contained not only teapot and cups but fruit-cake and sandwiches.

  ‘Now,’ said Mr Heath when they were comfortably settled by the fire, ‘what’s all this about Peter?’

  Hamish said briefly that Peter had been resident in the village of Drim and had left, he felt, under suspicious circumstances. ‘I mean, it’s the Highlands of Scotland,’ said Hamish. ‘You would think someone would have seen him leave. What did you make of his character?’

  A slightly guarded look came into the house-master’s eyes. ‘He was a boarder. Westminster takes day boys as well. I always thought he had been sent to the wrong school.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘The boys who come to us are usually very bright. The fees are high and people who do not know Westminster assume it is a school, like Eton, for the privileged, but a lot of our pupils are very gifted and there is not much emphasis on sport. I think Peter felt out of place.’

  ‘Was he very manipulative?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘An odd question.’

  ‘Well, was he?’ There was a long silence and then Mr Heath said, ‘It’s not as if you are from the newspapers. Yes, he was. At first he seemed quite bright, but I found he had got a hold of some kind over some of the boys and was making them do his homework for him. He craved attention and admiration. One teacher who gave him a hard time immediately became the butt of scurrilous gossip. I thought Peter was behind it but could prove nothing. The worst thing he did was with the girls.’

  ‘How? This is important.’

  ‘We have girls in the final years. He was a remarkably beautiful boy. He enjoyed setting one girl against the other. One of our most brilliant girls failed her exams because she was so besotted with him.’

  Hamish drew a long breath. ‘Peter Hynd moved into the village of Drim,’ he said. ‘The young people have mostly left for the cities, but the middle-aged women fell hook, line and sinker for Peter. He made sure that’s exactly what they would do. The atmosphere in the village was terrible, full of hate and menace. Recently, one of the women, Betty Baxter, was found dead on the beach, her neck broken, diagnosed as accident, but I’m not so sure. Now, would you say he could engender enough hate for someone to murder him?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Heath calmly. ‘I felt like murdering him myself.’

  ‘Does he have a family? Where does the money come from?’

  ‘The parents are both dead. The fees were paid by a family trust. He has a sister, an elder sister. She used to come on parents’ day. Now what was her name? Beth, that was it, Beth Hynd. She may have married by now. Lived in Richmond. Peter spent his school holidays with her. I am afraid I cannot remember the address.’

  As he left, Hamish groaned inwardly. Back to London and then Richmond. He had meant to stay and look around Cambridge, but the desire to prove to himself that he was not on a wild-goose chase, that he had not wasted his holidays, drove him on. He was fortunate in catching a fast train and an hour later was back in London and on the tube to Richmond.

  Richmond, which he had not visited before, was much larger and sprawling than he had expected. He did not want to enlist the help of the local police and so draw attention to himself. But where to start? He went into the nearest post office and asked for the telephone directory. Women no longer prefixed their names in the phone books with ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’ for fear of getting obscene calls. Her first name would be Elizabeth, he thought, turning the pages, so it would probably be under E. Hynd. There were several E. Hynds in the Richmond area, so he bought a phone card and went out to the box and began to phone each one.

  At the third call, just when he was beginning to think she might have an ex-directory number, Beth Hynd answered the phone. She listened to him carefully and then said cautiously that he could call on her but to have his identification ready and to tell her before he arrived a number in Sutherland she could call to confirm he was who he said he was. Hamish gave her Jimmy Anderson’s name and the Strathbane number. He rang off, put the card back in the slot, and dialled Strathbane police headquarters. To his infinite relief, Jimmy Anderson was there. The detective listened while Hamish briefly outlined the reason for his visit south. ‘Nobody’s going to love ye if this turns out tae be murder,’ said Anderson. ‘Daviot’ll consider you’ve made a fool o’ the lot of us.’

  ‘Don’t care,’ said Hamish. ‘Chust tell this woman I am who I am.’

  ‘Right you are, Popeye.’

  Hamish left the box, realizing he had not asked Beth for directions. He went into a news-agent’s and consulted a street directory and found that the street in which she lived was not very far away.

  Although Beth Hynd was in her late thirties – Hamish judged her to be about ten yearsolder than her brother – there was a strong family likeness. She also reminded him forcibly of someone he had met recently.

  She invited him into the living room of her home. It was a pleasant-enough room, well-ordered, but lit with a 40-watt bulb behind one of those old-fashioned glass shades, which gave the place the air of the type of waiting room one waits in before some humiliation – dentist, gynaecologist, headmaster – or the lounge of an old folks’ home where the elderly sit and play Scrabble and wait for death’s bright angel to pop his head round the door and say, ‘Come in, Number Six, your time’s up.’ An old-fashioned gas fire hissed and popped.

  ‘I trust Peter has come to no harm,’ she said.

  Hamish had no intention of scaring her with a belief that Peter Hynd might have been murdered. ‘I am investigating a death in the village of Drim,’ he said, ‘where your brother lived �
��’

  ‘Lived? You mean he is not still there?’

  ‘No, he left a few weeks ago. I judged him to be a clever young man who might have seen something that the locals missed. Do you know where he is?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘He usually turns up here sooner or later. I will tell him to phone you immediately when he arrives.’

  ‘Does he work at anything?’

  ‘He took various jobs, but as he has a private income he does not need to work and so he never really stuck at anything for very long.’

  ‘Any romantic entanglements?’

  Her eyes were suddenly sharp. ‘Why? Why do you ask? What has that got to do with anything?’

  Hamish’s voice was soothing. ‘Och, I just thought that if he had a lassie, then she might know where he is.’

  Her face cleared. ‘Of course. But I am afraid I know nothing of Peter’s love life.’

  ‘Where does he live when he’s in the south? His house is let.’

  ‘Here. He stays here.’

  ‘Are you very close?’

  A guarded look and then: ‘Of course. He is my brother.’

  Hamish stared at her in frustration but he realized there was nothing further to be got out of her. And the room was depressing him. It must be awful, he thought, to have enough private income to knock any idea of getting a job out of one’s head.

  ‘What do you do?’ he asked.

  ‘Do? I am on the board of a couple of charities. Then there are people to visit. Believe me, there are not enough hours in the day.’ The sudden loneliness looking out of her eyes belied the statement. Hamish glanced around the room. Books in serried ranks, dark-green house plants, but not even a cat for company.

  He found it a relief to be back out in the streets of Richmond, where the air smelled of crisp autumn. He found a cheap restaurant and ate a hamburger and drank Coke with a pleased feeling that Priscilla would disapprove of such junk food. He would need to get back to the source, he thought, and that was Drim. He felt in his bones that young Heather was right. Peter Hynd was as dead as a doornail, and instead of wasting time in the south, he should be back in the north, asking question after question until a clearer picture appeared. He looked at his watch. If he hurried, he could get back to Rory’s, pack up, and catch the night train to Inverness.

  He always felt like a fish out of water investigating things on foreign territory anyway.

  As it was, he only managed to leap on the train as it was pulling out. Most of the train consisted of sleeping cars, so he was lucky to find an empty seat in the few carriages allotted to upright passengers.

  As he fell asleep, the faces of the women of Drim danced before his eyes. And yet, would it not be more likely that one of the men was the murderer? Murder, murder, murder, sang the wheels as the train ploughed north through the darkness, leaving London and the south behind.

  ‘You want what?’ Jock Kennedy leaned on the counter of his shop and looked in amazement at Hamish Macbeth.

  ‘I want a room,’ said Hamish patiently.

  ‘Why? You live ower at Lochdubh.’

  ‘I’m on my holidays.’

  ‘Seems daft tae me. Try Edie Aubrey. She lets out a room tae the tourists.’

  ‘Fine.’

  As Hamish walked to Edie Aubrey’s home, he noticed that the community hall now stood silent. He glanced in the window of the hair-dresser’s as he passed. Alice MacQueen was sitting in a chair by the window, doing her nails. Not a customer in sight. Two women passed him on their way to the store wearing the inevitable uniform of anorak and ski trousers stretched over massive thighs, lank hair, and no make-up. Nothing any more to dress up for.

  Edie Aubrey looked flustered when he asked for a room. ‘The season’s over,’ she said nervously. ‘I haven’t aired the room.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll do fine,’ said Hamish.

  ‘Well, it’s just bed and breakfast. I don’t do any other meals.’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘Oh, I suppose. You’re not here officially then?’

  ‘No, chust wanted to get out of Lochdubh. A policeman’s neffer off duty so long as Strath-bane knows where he is. Want to get a bit of fishing.’

  ‘Follow me,’ said Edie, apparently making up her mind. The house was one of those many Victorian villas which were built for holidaying English families after Queen Victoria had made the Highlands fashionable. It was small but well-carpeted and well-fired. The bedroom allotted to him contained a large double bed covered in a shiny pink satin quilt. There was one of those old-fashioned basket chairs in a corner, green shot with gold, which held a doll in a frilly dress. Its eyes stared at Hamish as empty of expression as the dead eyes of Betty Baxter. A large wardrobe dominated one wall, built for the heavier, larger clothes of Victorians. He opened it up. There were shelves on one side for shirts and little drawers for collar studs and dress studs. Over the bed was a picture of two Edwardian girls chasing a small white dog across a field of poppies.

  ‘If you’d like to unpack and come downstairs, I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ said Edie. He smiled at her and she patted her hair and blinked at him through her glasses.

  When she had left, Hamish looked out of the window and down to the black expanse of the sea loch. At the far-inland end of the loch, the river Drim fell in peaty brown cascades over jagged rocks. Farther up the river he could see the glint of a pool. He had collected his fishing-rods from the police station before coming to Drim. Perhaps he might go up to that pool and try to get some trout and leave investigations until the morrow. He was supposed to be on holiday, and if the locals really believed that, he might pick up more gossip than he would do if they thought he was in the village on business.

  He unpacked and went downstairs. Edie placed a pot of tea and a plate of scones on the table. ‘You are a widow, aren’t you?’ asked Hamish.

  She poured tea into thick mugs. ‘Yes, my Jamie passed on ten years ago. He was a fine man.’

  ‘You’re not from the Highlands?’

  ‘No, from down south. Moffat.’

  ‘So what brought you here? These scones are grand.’

  ‘Have another. Jamie was ill, cancer. He always thought the Highland air would cure him, thought it right to the last, poor man.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever want to move back south?’

  Edie put down her cup and her eyes strayed to the kitchen window as if seeking the answer among the laurels in the garden. ‘Oh, I thought of it often. But I didn’t have many friends in Moffat, I was too busy looking after Jamie. Somehow I just stayed on here.’ Her voice was sad. ‘I’ve tried to brighten up the place. It was the high moment in my life when they all started coming to the exercise classes. But then Peter left …’

  Her voice trailed away. ‘And darkness fell on the land,’ added Hamish silently.

  He finished his tea. Plenty of time for more questions. ‘I’m just going to take my rod up the Drim and see if I can get any trout.’

  ‘I don’t usually cook meals, but I’d like a fresh trout for tea. If you catch any, I’ll cook them.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

  Hamish almost but not quite forgot the reason for his stay in Drim as he angled in the pool, expertly flicking the fly so that it skimmed on the peaty gold of the water. He had just reeled in his second trout when he had a feeling of being watched. He tipped the trout into the old-fashioned fishing basket he used and turned slowly about. There was a stand of silver birch behind him.

  ‘Come out,’ he called.

  There was a rustling and then the slight figure of Heather Baxter appeared. ‘You’re staying at Mrs Aubrey’s,’ she said.

  ‘News travels fast,’ said Hamish. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, chust fine. Da and I get along well.’

  Hamish looked at the composed little figure. Would this child kill her own mother so as to have a quiet home and her father to herself? The thought was a repugnant one. It was the fault of the atmospher
e of Drim, which easily conjured up Gothic fantasies in the mind.

  ‘Catch anything?’ Heather asked.

  ‘Two trout.’

  ‘Da would like a trout for his tea, and so would I.’

  ‘And so would I,’ said Hamish. ‘Sit down over there and I’ll see what I can do.’

  She sat down and clasped her hands over her knees and closed her eyes. Hamish threw her an amused look. ‘Praying?’

  She nodded fiercely and he wondered if she was praying to the Christian God or one of the Celtic pagan ones. To his amazement, he caught his next trout almost immediately. Heather opened her eyes. ‘And another,’ she said solemnly and fell to praying again. He cast again but without much success. The day began to grow darker. And then the hair began to rise on his neck, for Heather’s voice was rising in a keening sound. He knew she was chanting in Gaelic but he could not make out the exact words He was about to call to her to stop her nonsense when he felt a tug on the line.

  Some minutes later, Heather’s voice died away and she looked in satisfaction at the large trout he was landing.

  ‘Come home with me,’ she said after she had wrapped the present of two trout up in docken leaves. ‘Mrs Aubrey’s a dreadful cook.’

  ‘Off with you,’ said Hamish, ‘and don’t put your faith in the old gods, Heather. That sort of thing’ll turn you potty.’

  ‘It got me the trout for Da’s tea,’ said Heather practically, and off she went.

  Hamish headed back to the village, carrying his catch. He nodded and said, ‘Good evening’ and ‘Grand night’ to passing villagers, who stopped and stared at him but did not return his greeting.

  Edie received the trout with enthusiasm. ‘I have a new French cookery book,’ she said, ‘and there is a very interesting way of baking trout with cheese, so …’

  ‘My treat, my cooking,’ said Hamish firmly. ‘I’m a dab hand wi’ the trout.’

  He gutted the fish and grilled them and served them with boiled potatoes and peas.

  He felt a sudden wave of fatigue. He had not had much sleep on the train north. He cocked his head. A gale was beginning to blow up outside. ‘I thought you were too sheltered here in Drim to get much wind,’ he said.