And then a voice behind her said grimly, ‘Leave the phone alone, Miss Halburton-Smythe.’
Hamish and Bill arrived outside John Glover’s flat, which was in a tall sandstone building. They rang all the bells until the buzzer went on the door. ‘Who is it?’ called a voice from the top of the stairs.
‘Police!’ shouted Bill. ‘Which is Mr Glover’s flat?’ There had been no cards next to the bells.
‘Number one, ground floor,’ quavered the voice from above.
‘I hope to God we’re right about this,’ said Bill, ‘for I’m about to smash in a good piece of Victorian stained glass.’ He took a small, unofficial truncheon out of his trousers pocket and smashed at the glass. Brightly coloured shards flew everywhere. He reached through the hole he had made and removed a chain and clicked the safety catch off the lock. ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘You’d think a bank manager would be more security-conscious. Jesus! Smell that, Hamish!’
There was a rank, sweetish smell, only too familiar to both men. In the distance they could hear the wail of police sirens. They did not have far to look for the real John Glover. Recognizable – just – from that photograph in the bank, he lay dead on his living room floor among the ransacked debris of emptied drawers and cupboards. He had been strangled.
‘Where’s this fake John Glover now?’ asked Bill.
‘Tommel Castle Hotel. I cannae wait,’ said Hamish. ‘I’ve got to get there.’
‘Man, you may as well take a back seat now,’ said Bill. ‘They’ll call out Strathbane.’
‘I’ve got to try,’ said Hamish. ‘There’s someone I know might be in danger. I’m in enough trouble as it is. Give me the keys to your car, Bill. I did this for you.’
Bill tossed him the keys as police burst into the room. ‘Let him go,’ snapped Bill as the police tried to grab hold of Hamish. ‘He’s one of us.’
‘So what do we do with her?’ Betty John was asking. Priscilla was gagged with sticking plaster and bound to a chair in the fake John’s room.
‘We wait,’ said ‘John’ easily. ‘You go downstairs and tell that manager that Miss Halburton-Smythe has taken off for Inverness, then we wait until the lunch is over and the hotel is quiet again and then we take her out.’
‘What are we going to do with her?’
‘Take her up in the hills and lose her,’ he said. ‘By the time she finds her way back and alerts the police, we’ll be long gone.’
‘Why didn’t we just clear off after you had got rid of Duggan?’ fretted Betty.
‘Then they would have guessed right away. Don’t worry, we’ll still get clear.’
Betty’s next words horrified Priscilla.
‘When Glover doesn’t turn up at the bank on Monday, they’ll start searching for him.’
‘I thought of that. I’ll phone in sick on Monday and then we’ll disappear for a bit.’
Priscilla listened with her eyes half closed. There was no Hamish to ride to the rescue. She did not believe for one moment that ‘John’ meant to let her go. He would kill her as callously as he had killed the real bank manager and Duggan.
All she could do was wait and pray for a miracle. Betty went out. ‘John’ surveyed her with a smile. ‘You’re a silly, interfering bitch,’ he said. ‘It amused me to stay on here and play games with you and that loon of a boyfriend of yours. No one crosses me and gets away with it. You know what Duggan did?’
And you’re going to tell me, thought Priscilla, because you’re going to kill me, so it doesn’t matter what I know now.
‘He was told to stash a haul from a bank robbery and then report to my house for the share-out. We waited and waited. His name isn’t Duggan, it’s Charlie Stoddart. I couldn’t believe the little bastard had made off with the money, but that’s what he did. I kept a wait and watch. I traced him as far as America. I had all the planes watched, all the flights from America. There was a rumour he’d gone in for weight-lifting and plastic surgery. Then, by some fluke, the bastard got drunk one night in Houston, Texas, and shot off his mouth. The fellow he talked to knew I had a reward out for information, phoned me up and gave me his new name. He’d sobered up the next day and taken fright and got on a plane to Scotland. I missed him in Glasgow, but picked up his trail north. Probably thought the last place I would look for him was back in Scotland. I’ve got my reputation to think of. The underworld has to know that no one, no one, crosses Gentleman Jim and gets away with it.’
He is nothing but a common criminal, thought Priscilla bleakly. How could I be so stupid?
Betty came into the room. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Thank God for the rain. No one will be hanging outside when we take her out. But to make sure, I’ve parked the car at the foot of the back stairs. Listen, you are going to let her go? I mean, there’s been enough killing.’
‘Of course,’ said John. ‘Now, let’s wait.’
There was a mobile phone in the car but Hamish decided not to phone Priscilla. If she knew the real identity of the murderer, she might betray herself. Anyway, Strathbane would soon be racing over to the hotel, but just in case there was any hold-up, he had to try to get there.
He phoned the airport manager and asked if there was any plane about to take off to Inverness and was told only a private jet belonging to Mr Morton of the Hillington Electronics Company. Hamish asked to be put through to him and Mr Morton listened intrigued to Hamish’s urgent Highland voice telling him why he had to get north in a hurry. ‘I’ll take you,’ said Mr Morton. ‘Come straight out on the runway. Then I can take you up by helicopter from Inverness.’
He told Hamish how to get to the runway he was on. Hamish turned on the blue light and the siren and weaved his way through the traffic on the road to the airport.
He looked at his watch. Only ten in the morning! A lifetime seemed to have passed since they went to that tower block.
* * *
‘What’s the time?’ asked Betty. ‘John’ looked at the heavy gold watch on his wrist. ‘Early yet,’ he said laconically.
‘I’m worried,’ said Betty. ‘Someone’s bound to come.’
‘Did you hang the “Do Not Disturb” sign outside the door?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, we’ve got the room until twelve. We’ll wait until their lunch is over and then take her out.’
‘What if we meet someone in the corridor? You can’t keep a gag on her.’
‘She’ll have a gun in her ribs. She won’t even squeak if she wants to stay alive.’ He smiled at Priscilla. ‘Will you, sweetie?’
Priscilla looked at him with hate. She was so sure he was going to kill her that she felt she ought to be brave enough to go down in flames. But such a villain would simply shoot anyone who tried to come to her aid.
They tried to prevent Hamish Macbeth from driving on to the tarmac: police car or not, he was told he needed clearance. A pig-faced policeman at the barrier leading to the runway said pontifically, ‘You jist wait where you are, laddie, while I make a few phone calls.’
Hamish watched his fat retreating back in a fury. At the far end of the runway, he could see a Learjet, Mr Morton’s jet. He made up his mind. He got out of the car, dived under the barrier and began to run, running as he had run at the Cnothan games, pounding along the runway, deaf to the shouts behind him. He gained the jet and climbed in next to Mr Morton, who was just getting the all clear for take-off. As the plane roared off down the runway, Mr Morton said uneasily, ‘There seems to be a lot of activity.’
‘Don’t pay any attention,’ urged Hamish. ‘Urgent police business.’
But Hamish expected any minute that there would be a message from the control tower to turn back. When no such call came, he could only assume that the police, determined to catch this Gentleman Jim, had told the airport authorities to let him go. Thanks to Mr Morton, he would get there quickly, in under an hour; but even so, Strathbane would be there and Blair would be desperate to claim the credit.
Blair had phoned the manager of the hotel
and told him that John Glover was a dangerous criminal and not to be approached, as he was armed and dangerous. Staff should keep out of his way. They would shortly have the hotel surrounded. But the excited Blair in the race to Lochdubh from Strathbane put on the police siren. Up in the hotel room, John heard that distant wail.
‘Trouble,’ he said to Betty. ‘Untie her, ungag her, and let’s get her down the back stairs.’
‘We don’t need her,’ hissed Betty, her face a muddy colour with fright.
‘We may need a hostage. Leave the luggage. Leave the guns. I’ve got my pistol.’
‘But there’s a fortune in clothes in my bags!’ wailed Betty.
He slapped her so violently across the face that she went staggering across the room. ‘Do as you’re told,’ he said.
Tight-lipped, Betty got to work, ripping the gag from Priscilla’s mouth and untying her bonds.
With a pistol shoved into her side, Priscilla was hustled out and along the corridor. Betty’s breath came in ragged gasps. Priscilla heard that wail of the siren in the distance and prayed the police would arrive in time.
Outside the back door, she blinked in the blaze of sunlight. The rain had stopped. ‘Sit in the back of the car with her,’ John ordered Betty. ‘Here, take the gun and keep her covered.’
Priscilla kept her eyes on the gun now in Betty’s hand. There was no sign of that hand wavering or Betty becoming distracted.
They raced off down the drive and swung out through the gates and along the single-track road.
‘They’ll have road-blocks,’ said Betty.
‘I know,’ he said calmly. ‘But while you were romancing that idiot of a copper, I’ve been doing my homework. There’s plenty of places to hide out, and the closer to the hotel, the better.’ The car sped up into the hills and then John suddenly slowed. ‘This is the place,’ he said. He turned off to the left along a farm track. ‘There’s a deserted building along here,’ he said. ‘We’ll wait until dark. I’ve got one of those three-wheel dune-buggy-type vehicles they use for rounding up sheep. We can take off across the hills and avoid the roads.’
‘Where to?’
‘You’ll find out.’
He stopped finally outside a deserted farm building. ‘Out,’ he commanded.
He urged them into the building. ‘Now keep her there a minute, Betty,’ he said. ‘I’m going to take a look around outside.’
Betty and Priscilla faced each other across the bare room. Sun slanted through the broken windows.
‘Did you really work in that bank?’ Priscilla asked. She thought furiously: get her talking and she might drop her guard.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Betty. ‘For fifteen years.’
‘Fifteen years!’ exclaimed Priscilla. ‘Then that means you weren’t a criminal until this.’
Betty stared at her mulishly.
‘Why?’ pursued Priscilla. ‘Why now? You may as well tell me because he’s going to kill me.’
‘No, he’s not,’ said Betty contemptuously. ‘He’ll set you free as soon as we decide to move.’
‘He’ll kill me, just the way he killed the real John Glover.’
‘Jim didn’t kill Glover.’
‘Oh, and how did you get his credit cards and chequebook? Ask him to hand them over?’
‘Jim got one of his friends to keep a guard on him while we came up here. He’ll be released as soon as we get back to Glasgow.’
‘Do you know this for a fact? He killed Duggan. You can’t be naïve enough to think he let Glover live, or that he’s going to let me live . . . or even you!’
Betty laughed. ‘Don’t try and pull that one on me. Jim and me are an item.’
‘But you were engaged to John Glover, the late John Glover,’ said Priscilla, hoping to frighten her, hoping to get her angry.
‘Stop saying that! Duggan deserved to die. He was nothing more than a common criminal.’
‘And your Jim is an uncommon criminal?’
There was a long silence. The wind of Sutherland howled around the deserted farmhouse like a banshee. The police would have reached the hotel, thought Priscilla. Surely they would search the surrounding countryside. But Blair would be in charge and Blair would think only of road-blocks. But surely they would bring dogs.
Betty gave an involuntary shiver. ‘I don’t know how anyone can live up here,’ she complained. ‘Nothing for miles and miles, and the weather’s dreadful.’
‘It can be just as dreadful in Glasgow,’ said Priscilla. ‘Look, we may as well pass the time until he gets back. Tell me how you got into all this.’
Betty gave a shrug and walked to the window and looked out. The moorland fell away in front of her. Thin curtains of rain were trailing over the mountains in the distance although the sun shone where they were.
She turned back. ‘As I said, I’d been working in that bank for years. I got engaged to John Glover because I decided I’d better start making provision for my old age. I used to go to a bar near the bank after work. One evening, Jim came up to me and asked if he could buy me a drink. We got talking. He seemed rich and sophisticated, everything John was not. We began to see each other. Then we started an affair. I told him I would tell John the engagement was off. He asked me why I’d got involved with such a dry stick of a man in the first place and I told him, security. He said he’d a proposition to put to me. He said for a start I had to stay engaged to John. He said he loved me and was going to marry me.’
‘And you believed him!’ exclaimed Priscilla.
‘He does love me and he wants to marry me and I love him,’ said Betty passionately.
‘In fact you love him so much, you end up in bed with Hamish Macbeth!’
‘Oh, that! That was Jim’s idea. Tie that copper up, he said, and he’ll look elsewhere for suspects.’
In all her misery and dread Priscilla suddenly wished she could stay alive if only to tell Hamish Macbeth what Betty had said.
‘Let me get this straight,’ said Priscilla. ‘You’re a respectable bank clerk for years. This Jim comes on the scene and you agree to his taking the identity of your fiancé and conspire to murder Duggan.’
‘His name wasn’t Duggan. He was some rat of a low life called Charlie Stoddart.’
‘And that makes it all right?’
‘Look, you snotty bitch, you don’t know what it was like working in that bank, year in and year out, handling all that money that didn’t belong to me. Jim said we could have everything I’d ever dreamt of – fancy clothes, fancy holidays, visit all the places I’d only seen in the movies.’ She turned back to the window. ‘What’s keeping him?’
Jim checked to make sure the three-wheeler was still there and ready to drive. Then he walked away across the moorland, the wind tugging at his thick hair. He did not feel afraid, only felt a rush of adrenaline. He knew in his bones he was going to get away with it. He felt the gods were on his side. Beck confessing to the murder of Duggan had been an amazing bit of luck. The jealousy that fat pig Blair had for the local Lochdubh copper had been another. There had been no need to try to kill Hamish, but he had felt it would have been a way of tying up loose ends. It had been amazingly simple to leave the crowd at the Cnothan games and climb up that mountain and be ready and waiting when Hamish came into view, finding the rifle he had buried in the heather the night before. So he had missed – so what? No one had believed Hamish’s story, his rifle had not been found, and he had been able to get it back in the middle of the night after the games. It was a pity he’d had to go off and leave the rifle and shotgun in the hotel room, but it was a small price to pay for freedom. He had no intention of heading off during daylight. They would have helicopters up there soon, searching the surrounding countryside. He took a last look around. As he had previously found, the moorland was surprisingly dry and heathery despite all the rain: no sinister peat bogs. He had a man waiting for him in a cottage near Bonar Bridge, complete with a ready disguise for him and a set of fake identity papers. Now to clear
up the remaining loose ends.
* * *
Blair was in a bigger fury than he had ever been before. It was he who had poured scorn on Hamish Macbeth’s belief that Beck had not killed Duggan. But he could have saved the day with the arrest of this man masquerading as John Glover, believed to be the famous Gentleman Jim. But Jim was gone, together with that Betty John. And, worse than that, the staff had been told to keep clear, but a maid watching from one of the upstairs windows had seen the pair forcing Priscilla Halburton-Smythe into a car and driving off. The normally urbane Superintendent Peter Daviot was on the scene, and his language was worse than Blair’s. Radios crackled as orders went out to block every road leading out of Lochdubh.
Colonel Halburton-Smythe, supporting his weeping wife, was shouting that they were all a bunch of dangerous incompetents.
Press cars were beginning to drive up and Blair was howling at his men to ‘get the buggers away’.
Adding to the confusion were the villagers of Lochdubh, who had heard about the trouble at the castle before the police arrived and were huddled in groups in the hotel car park.
‘So it wasn’t you, Willie,’ said Lucia.
Willie looked at her in amazement. ‘You mean you thought I might have murdered Duggan! Why, for God’s sake?’
‘You’re such a tiger when you’re angry.’
And Willie promptly forgave her everything.
Mrs Wellington, the minister’s wife, was addressing some of her husband’s parishioners, her booming voice reaching Blair’s infuriated ears. ‘We should have listened to Hamish Macbeth. Did he not say that Beck had not done the murder?’
‘Yes, but how do we know this armed man here did it, tell me that?’ cried Geordie Mackenzie.
Mrs Wellington gave him a withering look. ‘Use your brains. We may be getting a reputation here, but it’s hard to believe we have two murderers in Lochdubh.’
‘If you’re right, then we have,’ said Geordie triumphantly. ‘Beck murdered Rosie and this fellow murdered Duggan.’
Death of a Macho Man Page 17