by M C Beaton
“Just the man,” hailed Jimmy. “Let’s go for a dram.”
They walked in silence to The Drouthy Crofter. The bar was empty.
Hamish knew Jimmy had to be fueled up with whisky before he could get any information out of him and so he bought him a double and said, “Let’s sit down over there. What’s the latest. Was anything stolen from Fred Sutherland’s flat?”
“No sign of it. He wasnae the type o’ old boy to keep it under the bed either. How did you get on with Kylie’s boss?”
“Not very far. He kept her on because she was a steady worker and the customers liked her. I see his point. The young people up here like to go on the dole and do a bit of moonlighting. They’re hardly the workers o’ the world. This is the second time someone has gone up that stair to commit murder and no one’s seen anyone. Certainly the lights were out on the stair but there was a streetlight outside.”
“I’ll tell you something about Braikie,” said Jimmy. “Has it ever dawned on you how dead it is, even in the middle o’ the day? What am I talking about? Especially in the middle o’ the day. Down south the supermarkets are open the whole time and some o’ the Asian shops are open round-the-clock, but up here everything closes down as tight as a drum at lunchtime. Then any other wee town in Scotland, you’ll aye see groups o’ people standing about talking. Not here. It’s as bad as that other hellhole, Cnothan. I’ve been watching. About nine in the morning, everyone goes to the shops, get what they want and disappear. By ten o’clock, the place is as dead as anything. Around five o’clock, just before the shops close, they all come out again. The young people spend their day in this pub after they awake about two in the afternoon, and the old people go to that club of theirs. A special bus goes round and collects them at nine in the morning. The middle-aged stay at home and watch the soaps. I’m telling you, Hamish, if I had to live in Braikie, I’d cut my wrists.”
“What’s happened to Kylie now?”
“Back at Strathbane for questioning. She’s got a lawyer now.”
“Who’s she got?”
“Mr. Armstrong-Gulliver.”
Hamish raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’ll cost her a pretty penny. How can she afford him, and where are her parents and who are her parents?”
“Mother. Single mother in Inverness. On the game. Hasn’t seen Kylie for two years. Broken home. Violence.”
“What do you make of Kylie?”
“Sexy little piece, but as hard as nails. I’ve seen strong men crumble before Blair. But not our Kylie.”
Hamish leaned back in his chair. “If Gilchrist were still alive, I would be suspecting him o’ the murder of Fred to keep the old man’s mouth shut about him and Kylie. There’s something verra obvious we’re missing, Jimmy.”
“The fact is,” said Jimmy, “we’re cluttered up wi’ crime and suspects. There’s that robbery at the hotel and Mrs. Macbean being an auld flame o’ Gilchrist. There’s the Smileys and their illegal still. You said they were going to drop you in a peat bog? Do that to a copper and you’ll murder anyone.”
“I don’t know,” said Hamish. “There’s something about that mad couple that belongs to the Highlands long gone. I don’t think mentally that they’d got as far as the nineteenth century let alone the twentieth.”
Jimmy laughed. “They had all the twentieth-century equipment to make the hooch.”
“Aye, but to them that was a Highlander’s legitimate livelihood and a nosy policeman in their minds is the same as a visit from the redcoats in the eighteenth century. Into the bog with them.”
“Sounds daft to me. Anyway, now Kylie’s got her hotshot lawyer, Blair’ll need to treat her with kid gloves. Ach, I’m sick o’ the whole thing. The super says to Blair, “Are you sure Hamish hasn’t come up with something? He usually does,” and Blair oiled and crept and said, “Yes sir, I’ll ask him,” and then went down to the detectives room and took his temper out on all of us.”
“Another drink?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, that would be grand.”
As Hamish stood at the bar ordering the drinks, he noticed the pub was beginning to fill up. Perhaps he, Hamish Macbeth, had too free and easy an approach to law and order. He should have arrested Kylie for trying to entrap him in a rape scene, he should have arrested the seer for buying illegal whisky, or more likely, accepting it from the Smileys, he should have never gone to the Smileys’ on his own that night. He felt he was the muddled, bumbling Highland idiot that Blair often claimed he was.
He took the drinks back to the table, aware of the hostility towards himself and Jimmy emanating from the other customers.
“Look at this lot,” sneered Jimmy. “A good day’s work would kill them.”
Hamish kept his own thoughts. He thought that living on the state was a very seductive situation. Why would anyone want to go out to work when they didn’t have to? The jobs in the Highlands, farmworkers, forestry men, ghillies and gamekeepers, were all too physical for a new generation brought up on alcohol and instant food. He envied Jimmy in a way for he often wished he was not able to see the other point of view.
“So to get back to the case,” said Hamish, “I called on that old bat, Harrison, but she wasn’t at home.”
“She’s in the Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. Had a stroke.”
“When?”
“Last night. She was lucky. There was a local passing just as she keeled over in her living room. The curtains were drawn back and he saw her from the road and he had a mobile phone in his car, too. She could have lain there for days.”
“So we come back again to Maggie Bane,” said Hamish. “That’s the trouble with this latest murder and this Kylie business. We’re forgetting that Maggie Bane was the one with the real reason for hating Gilchrist. What if she knew or overheard his plans to go off with the terrible Mrs. Macbean? Then why did she go off for an hour that morning of all mornings? Damn, I think I’ll go back and have a wee word with her.”
“Better you than me,” said Jimmy. “What an ugly voice that lassie has!”
♦
Hamish found Maggie Bane in the middle of packing up her belongings. “What’s happening?” he asked. “Are you leaving?”
“I can’t stay here after all the scandal,” she said in her harsh voice, that voice which sounded so odd coming out from such a beautiful face. “I’m going home to my parents. I’m putting this place up for sale.”
“Do police headquarters know you are leaving?”
“Yes, I told them and left them my new address.”
“You’ve heard about this latest murder?”
“Yes, I heard it on the radio this morning.”
“And what do you make of it?”
She sat down on the floor beside a packing case as if suddenly weary. “It can’t have anything to do with Mr. Gilchrist’s murder.”
“Well, Mr. Sutherland lived above the surgery and he left a message for me that he had found out something about Kylie Fraser.”
Her face hardened. “That little slut!”
“Did you know Mr. Gilchrist tried to lay her?”
“That’s her story. He told me she came on to him and got bitchy when he turned her down.”
“Nothing about promising her a car if she kept her mouth shut?”
“Rubbish.” Maggie’s eyes blazed. “Let me tell you something, and I’ve already told the police this, Kylie Fraser is the biggest liar in the Highlands. She thought she could get any man she wanted and in order to fuel this myth, she made up wild stories.” She stood up and began to lift books into one of the packing cases. Her arms, Hamish noticed, were very strong.
“If you don’t mind my saying, Miss Bane,” said Hamish, “you look verra fit. Take much exercise?”
“I play a lot of squash.”
“Squash?”
“Yes, it’s the only thing I’ll miss about Braikie. There’s a very good squash club. Didn’t you know? Three nights a week. Mr. Dempster, who’s got the biggest house in th
e town – he owns a factory in Inverness – had a court built onto his house and started the club.”
“When exactly are you leaving?” asked Hamish.
“A week’s time.”
Hamish stood up. “I’ll be in touch.”
“I hope not,” she said acidly. “I never want to see another policeman again.”
Hamish hesitated in the doorway. “What will you do?”
“I got a letter from one of my old tutors this morning. The only person to write me a nice letter, I may add. He suggested I come and see him with a view to finding me a good job. He said a good way to get over a horrible experience like this was to be successful.”
At least I’ve done some good, thought Hamish, by going to see that tutor. Let’s just hope that the only person I’ve been able to help doesn’t turn out to be a murderess.
He went back into Braikie. As he walked up the stairs towards Fred Sutherland’s flat, he met a forensic team coming down the stairs in their white overalls.
“Anything?” he asked hopefully.
The leading man shook his head. “Not a print anywhere apart from the old man’s.”
Hamish was turning away when he noticed a dark stain in the passageway leading to the stairs. “What’s that?” he asked sharply. “Blood?”
The man grinned. “Dream on. We know what that is.”
“And what’s that?”
“Dog piss, Sherlock.”
“Oh.” Hamish stood irresolute. The forensic team looked at him impatiently. He pulled himself together and stood aside to let them past.
He wandered out in the street, pulled off his cap and scratched his fiery hair furiously. There was something there on the edge of his mind. A small boy chasing a ball cannoned into him, regained his balance and shouted, “Whit are ye standing there like a big drip o’ nothing fur?” and then ran on. Now if I gave that horrible little boy a clip round the ear, thought Hamish, I would make headlines in the newspapers next day, be suspended from my job pending a full enquiry. Maybe that was what was up with Kylie and her friends. They had grown up in a world of lax teaching, lax morals, junk food for the body and junk food for the mind. Then there was this wretched business of believing children innocent and precious things. Hamish remembered his own childhood, running with his friends, barbarians all, but kept in check by the disciplines of police, church and school. So today murders by children were becoming distressingly common. Perhaps the bad old days when all children were guilty until proved innocent in the eyes of the adult world had something going for it. He found he was getting cold and brought himself out of his musings.
He suddenly thought of Sarah and had a sharp desire to see her again. There was nothing more he could be expected to do that day and a pleasant evening and – hope upon hope – pleasant night with Sarah was just what he needed.
♦
He arrived at Tommel Castle Hotel and went into reception. “Hullo, Hamish,” said Mr. Johnson. “Bad business, mis murder of the old man.”
“Yes, I’ve just come from Braikie. Miss Hudson in?”
“Didn’t you know? She’s left.”
“Gone?”
“Aye, she went up to see auld Angus and then she comes back, all pinched and strained and asks for her bill. She phoned from reception. I listened, of course.”
“Of course,” echoed Hamish in a hollow voice.
“She said, “It’s me, Sarah. Oh, darling, I’ve missed you so much. I’m sorry I ran away. It’s all been a terrible mistake. I’ll try to get the evening flight from Inverness. Can you meet me at Heathrow?” Whatever he said, I don’t know because I could only hear her side of the conversation. Then she said, “You will? Oh, thank you, darling. I’ll phone you from Inverness and confirm I’m on the plane. Love you, too.””
“Wass it her husband?”
“I got an idea it was.”
“Funny Priscilla didn’t mention she was married. And,” said Hamish, growing angry, “it’s even funnier that she didn’t say a blind word to me.”
“Well, that’s women for you.”
Hamish slouched off. He felt truly miserable and rejected. Perhaps she had left a note for him at the police station. But when he got there, there was only an electricity bill lying on the doormat.
He sat down at his desk in the police office and buried his face in his hands. He shouldn’t feel this bad. It had only been one night and she had backed away from him ever since.
He suddenly knew he could not sit in the police station on his own. He locked up and headed back to Braikie. He would investigate something, anything – anything to keep his mind off Sarah. Where to start, he wondered as the orange sodium lights of the town stained the nighttime Highland sky.
What about that squash club? Might pick up something about Maggie Bane that he did not already know.
He told the owner, Mr. Dempster, that he just wanted to watch the matches and was taken up to a long gallery above the squash courts. Maggie Bane was in one, smashing balls with great energy, her black hair flying. She was playing with a thin, grey-haired muscular woman. In the next court a small round man was playing a tall well-built fellow. Hamish was about to turn away, when he suddenly turned back and focused on the small round man. It was the pharmacist, Mr. Charles Cody. Hamish watched in amazement the speed and power the little man put into his game.
He went slowly down the stairs and let himself outside. A cold wind had sprung up, coming in from the west, bringing with it the smell of the sea.
Now here, thought Hamish, with a fast beating heart, was a man who would know how to make nicotine poison, a man with enough strength to heave the body of a dead dentist up into the chair.
But why? What reason?
Fred Sutherland had found out something about Kylie. Hamish, like everyone else, had assumed the something was about Kylie and Gilchrist. But just suppose that something had been about Kylie and her boss.
What sort of man was Cody really? He had strength. He certainly played a ruthless game of squash.
Wait a bit. His wife had said he had been out walking the dog.
But now he thought of it, that had been a very frightened dog.
There had been dog urine on the stairs leading up past the surgery to Fred’s flat. Could forensic tell one dog’s urine from another? Bound to.
But why? Why murder Gilchrist and then Fred?
Surely it might mean that Cody had been having an affair with Kylie. The dentist had been revenge and poor Fred because somehow the old man had let slip that he was going to tell what he knew.
He could go back into the club and question him. But he suddenly wanted the right scenario, the right setting to make the man crack.
And then he thought of the formidable Mrs. Cody. He would go to Cody’s home and wait for his return.
∨ Death of a Dentist ∧
10
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
—Samuel Butler
As he stopped outside the Codys’ house, he hesitated before climbing down from the Land Rover. He should really contact Strathbane and tell them about his suspicions, about the dog urine. But would they listen? It was all so slight. And then would forensic be able to get anything from that urine? It would have dried by now. Better go ahead with it and see what he could find.
He rang the doorbell. Again Mrs. Cody opened the door. Her heavy face was truculent when she saw him. “What is it, officer? We have already made a statement to detectives today.”
“I just wanted a wee word with Mr. Cody.”
“He’s not here.”
“When will he be back?”
She sighed and squinted at her watch. “Any minute now. He’s playing squash.”
“May I please come in and wait for him?” Hamish smiled at her winningly.
“No,” she said and slammed the door in his face.
Aye, I’ve got bags o’ charm when it comes to dealing with the ladies, thought Hamish sourly.
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He got back into the Land Rover and waited.
The door opened and Mrs. Cody approached. Hamish rolled down the window. “That police vehicle is lowering the tone of the place,” she snapped.
“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” said Hamish amiably. “I could just drive it round the corner and come back and wait indoors for Mr. Cody.”
She gave him a baffled look and said, “Oh, very well.”
Hamish parked his vehicle carefully out of sight of the house, not so much as to please Mrs. Cody as not to forewarn Mr. Cody that he was waiting for him.
He went back and she ushered him into what she called the ‘lounge.’ Mrs. Cody was watching a game show on television. She paid no further attention to Hamish. Suky, the little dog, trotted up to Hamish and jumped on his lap. He patted the dog’s rough coat.
At last he heard a car approaching. The dog gave a sharp bark and jumped down from Hamish’s lap and ran to the front door.
“I’m home,” called Mr. Cody. Mrs. Cody did not reply. Someone was about to win a car or a packet of safety pins, depending on luck.
Hamish stood up as Mr. Cody walked into the room. “What’s this?” he demanded angrily.
“I wondered if I might have a word with you in private,” said Hamish.
“There is nothing that cannot be said in front of my wife.”
“Very well,” said Hamish, watching him closely. “On the night Fred Sutherland was murdered, you said you were walking the dog. Now there was a stain of dog urine on the stairs leading up to Fred Sutherland’s flat. Forensic will be able to identify the dog from the urine.”
“Are you implying I murdered that old man?” he demanded.
“She’s won the safety pins,” commented Mrs. Cody. “She chose the wrong box. I knew it.”
“If you want to play it the hard way,” said Hamish, “we’ll wait for the results.”
“Then do that,” he said coldly, “and take yourself out of my house before I call my lawyer.”
Hamish began to waver in his conviction. There seemed to be nothing about the guilty man in the cold eyes facing him.
“Then we’ll check,” he said, “and I’ll be back.”