Death of a Witch

by M C Beaton

  “You’re a kind man, Hamish,” croaked Angus.

  Hamish looked quickly around and then bent over Angus. “Know anything about a brothel near Lochdubh?”

  “You wouldnae be punishing a wee body for doing a few men a favour,” he wheezed.

  “Not me. But where?”

  Mrs. Wellington came in. “I hope you are not bothering our patient, Hamish. We need more peat for the fire. And get out the back and knock the snow off his satellite dish so he can watch the telly.”

  “I didn’t know you had satellite television, Angus,” said Hamish.

  “Stop bothering the man,” boomed Mrs. Wellington, “and get to it!”

  Hamish collected more peat from a shed at the back. Then he got a ladder and climbed up to the satellite dish—which was on a pole—and cleared the snow from it. He felt the wind on his cheek and realised it had moved round to the west. The snow had stopped falling, and there was a little patch of blue sky appearing above his head.

  When he went into the bedroom, the television had flickered into life. The Currie sisters were sitting on either side of the fire, drying their feet.

  “The Misses Currie are going to stay with Angus for a bit. I’ll call up this evening,” said Mrs. Wellington. “Oh, the thought of that walk back.”

  “I’m taking the sledge back,” said Angela. “We could sledge down the hill along the track we made coming up.”

  “You’ll never get me on a sledge,” protested the minister’s wife, but once outside, she quailed at the thought of struggling all the way down.

  “Hamish,” said Angus. “Come near.”

  Hamish bent over him.

  “Cnothan. Mobile home. Up on the north brae.”

  “Come along, Hamish,” ordered Mrs. Wellington.

  Outside, Angela and a reluctant Mrs. Wellington sat on the sledge. Hamish pushed from the back and jumped on board and they all went hurtling down, ending in a heap against a garden fence at the bottom.

  “That actually was fun,” said Mrs. Wellington, standing up and brushing snow from her clothes.

  The thaw came quickly the following day, only to be followed by a sharp frost turning the roads treacherous. He got a call from gamekeeper Willie. “There’s a couple o’ fellows skidded off the road up north of the hotel.”

  “I’ll see to it,” said Hamish.

  A gritting lorry was making its way along the waterfront, spraying sand and salt. Hamish followed it out of the village and up the hill past the hotel to where two men were standing on the road, talking to Willie. Their Land Rover was lying on its side in the ditch.

  Hamish got down and approached them. He stared. The older man had a beard and was accompanied by a younger man. He nodded to them and said to Willie, who was standing with his gun broken, “Get your shotgun on them.” To the two men he said, “Don’t dare move.”

  He took two sets of handcuffs out of his own vehicle and handcuffed both men, who were protesting violently. He then went to their Land Rover and peered inside. A deer carcase was lying in the back. So Timmy wasn’t lying after all, he thought.

  By the time he had taken them down to the police station, locked them in the one cell, phoned Strathbane, and filed a report, the ice on the roads had melted and a squad arrived from Strathbane to impound the poachers’ vehicle and take them to Strathbane. From their driving licences, he identified them as Walter Wills and Granger Home.

  As they were led off, the older man turned and spat at Hamish. “You’re a dead man,” he said.

  That evening, the weather remained relatively mild and the air was full of the melted snow, dripping from roofs. Hamish planned to set out the next morning to Cnothan.

  He once again looked at the stew pot and plate. If the weather stayed mild, then he might run over to Strathbane and return both to Lesley. He was surprised that she hadn’t contacted him. On the other hand, he should at least have sent her a note or some flowers to thank her for the meal. He sat down at his computer, contacted Interflora, and ordered a bunch of spring flowers from the Channel Islands to be sent to her. He hesitated over the message and finally wrote, “Thank you for a splendid dinner. Hamish.”

  That being done, he began to write out all he knew about the murders of Catriona and Ina to get it clear in his head. The fact that the back door of Catriona’s cottage did not appear to have been forced pointed to a local who might have known where a spare key was kept. On the other hand, it had been a simple Yale lock, easily sprung with a credit card.

  Every time he thought of Catriona, he felt rage building up inside him. He was sure she had been a murderess. He wished he could get down to Perth but Jimmy would get to hear of it and Hamish did not want to lose his friend. At least Blair had been quiet. As soon as a case went cold, Blair quickly concentrated on other cases, often building them out of proportion so that Daviot would hopefully forget about the murders.

  His mind ranged over the men in the village. There had been no odd incomers. He knew them all. He checked into the police records of the guests who had been staying at the hotel, but they all had impeccable backgrounds. What of Ruby Connachie in Perth, who must have felt she had been cheated out of a cosy marriage? Jimmy had filed all the reports. Maybe he had incorporated the Perth interviews. To his relief, Jimmy had filed the interview with Ruby. Hamish looked dismally at her age. Ruby was now seventy-six years old. She was a staunch member of the Methodist Church. Her statement was full of hatred for Catriona. She said it was God’s punishment. On the day of Ina’s death and at the very time they estimated Ina was being murdered in Patel’s grocery store, Ruby had been having lunch in Perth with two old friends. Hamish read and reread all the reports until he realised it was late at night and he wanted to get off to Cnothan in the morning early.

  Great pools of melted snow lay along the waterfront as he drove off in the morning with a brisk breeze sending little waves across their surfaces. A pale sun rode high in the washed-out blue of the sky. “I wish I could see Elspeth again,” he said over his shoulder to his pets in the back.

  “There he goes, talking to himself again,” said Nessie Currie, watching as the police Land Rover disappeared over the bridge at the end of the village. “That man needs a woman in his life.”

  “Woman in his life,” echoed Jessie.

  Hamish drove to Cnothan and then up the brae to the north. He could see no sign of a mobile home so he stopped at one of the outlying crofts.

  “Do you know if there’s a woman living in a mobile home near here?” he asked a gnome-like man who answered the door of the croft house.

  “Herself has gone,” said the crofter. “It wass chust afore the snow. Big truck moved the whole thing. Tellt someone she was moving ower to Bonar Bridge.”

  Hamish thanked him and started off on the road to Bonar Bridge. When he got there, diligent questioning gave him the information that there was a mobile home parked on the riverbank a bit outside the village.

  Bonar Bridge has a long history dating from the early Bronze Age settlements. The locals call it Bona, probably from part of its Gaelic name, Drochaid a Bhanna.

  After an hour of searching, he found a mobile home, screened by trees, on a grassy bank of the river. An old Rover was parked outside.

  He knocked at the door. There was no reply. He tried several times. He turned the door handle. The door swung open. The smell that met him made his heart sink. He went back to where he had parked his Land Rover and put on his blue coveralls and overboots and then donned a pair of plastic gloves. He went back to the mobile home, where the door swung back and forth in the breeze. He went inside.

  There was a double bed at the end of the mobile home, and on that bed lay a plump grey-haired woman, her dead eyes staring and her chest covered with dried blood. He stepped outside and phoned Strathbane. Then he went back in again and began to carefully search around. In a drawer, he found a passport. Her name had been Fiona McNulty, aged fifty-five. Along with the passport was a chequebook and various receipts for
Calor gas, food, and drink. Under the receipts was a typed note. It read, “You’re next, you whore. I’m coming for you.”

  He went back outside and up to his Land Rover. He took out a picnic basket and fed the dog and cat and filled their water bowls. He had a cup of coffee from his thermos but he didn’t feel like eating anything. What on earth, if anything, could connect the dead woman with Ina Braid and Catriona? And this dead woman, Fiona McNulty, certainly did not look like a prostitute.

  It seemed to take a long time for the squad to arrive from Strathbane but finally they were all assembled: pathologist, forensic team, Jimmy, and, at the head of it all, a furious Blair, knowing that Daviot would now be on his back for having not persevered in solving the first two murders.

  Hamish gave his report and was told by Blair to go and start knocking at doors in Bonar Bridge. Lesley had turned up with the forensic team but she had not once looked at him. Waste of flowers, thought the ever-thrifty Hamish sourly.

  Hamish knew more policemen would soon be knocking on doors as well, and he wanted to get ahead of the pack.

  An elderly lady inhabited the nearest cottage. She invited Hamish into her neat parlour and exclaimed in shock over the murder. “Such a decent lady,” she mourned. “What’s your name, young man?”

  “I’m Hamish Macbeth from Lochdubh,” said Hamish, taking out his notebook. “And you are?”

  “Mrs. Euphemia Cathcart.”

  “You are English?”

  “Yes. My husband was from Bonar and we moved up here when we got married. He’s been dead these twenty years. You sit there and I’ll make some tea.”

  Hamish waited until she came back with a laden tray. He brightened. Not only tea but also homemade scones. He was suddenly hungry.

  “Did you know the dead woman?” he asked.

  “Yes, I did. She was so nice and kind. She would fetch me stuff from the shops occasionally and drop in for a chat. She was from Glasgow but she said she liked the Highlands and when her husband died, she bought that trailer thing and moved up here. She said when she got tired of a place, she could move on. Of course her old car couldn’t pull that great thing but she said there was always someone locally with a truck to do it for her.”

  “I don’t want to shock you, Mrs. Cathcart, but there was talk of her being a prostitute.”

  “I am shocked. The malicious things people do say. She was a decent lady. One of the best. We became friends right away. I really will miss her. It was probably a poaching gang. They’re vicious, those salmon poachers.”

  “But you never saw any men going near her home?”

  “Not a one. Don’t you listen to that rubbish. The bad side to some of the highlanders is that they will make up stories.”

  “Did she talk about anyone or did she say she had recently been parked over near Cnothan?”

  “No, come to think of it, apart from telling me about her young days in Glasgow, she didn’t mention the last place she’d been.”

  “And do you know if she was friendly with anyone apart from you?”

  “I’m sure there was bound to be someone but she never said . . . Oh, God! It’s horrible!” She pointed with a shaking finger at the window.

  Blair’s face, swollen with booze and contorted with anger, was glaring in the glass.

  “It’s all right,” said Hamish soothingly. “It’s chust the boss.”

  He went to the door and opened it.

  “Whit the hell dae ye think ye’re doing, sitting there on yer arse drinking tea?” howled Blair.

  “Mrs. Cathcart here was a friend of the deceased,” said Hamish.

  Daviot loomed up behind Blair. “What is going on?” he demanded.

  Blair swung round. “I was just asking Macbeth here what he thought he was doing drinking tea with some auld biddy.”

  A gentle reproving voice from the doorway said, “I do not like being called an auld biddy. I have just been telling this nice policeman that the poor dear Mrs. McNulty was a friend of mine. You,” she said, glaring at Blair, “are a good example of why people in this country have lost the respect for the police.”

  Daviot stepped forward. “I am sure the chief inspector did not mean to insult you. Please carry on, Macbeth.”

  Hamish followed Mrs. Cathcart back indoors. “I think I’ve actually got enough for the moment,” he said.

  “Just you sit down and finish your tea. It must be horrible working for a man like that.”

  “Just one more thing,” said Hamish. “May I have another scone?”

  “As many as you like.”

  “Thanks. What I really meant to ask was, Did you ever go along to the shops with her?”

  “I went the once.”

  “Did she seem to be particularly friendly with any of the shopkeepers?”

  “I remember there was a Mr. Tumulty at the craftshop. She seemed to be on good terms with him.”

  “I’ll try there.”

  “Drop by anytime.”

  Mr. Tumulty was a small, faded-looking man dressed entirely in grey. He had grey hair and grey watery eyes in a pale face. Hamish judged him to be in his fifties. The news of the murder had spread like wildfire. “This is terrible,” he burst out when Hamish entered the dark little shop. “Who would want to murder poor Fiona?”

  “I gather you were friendly with her.”

  “We got talking when she came in to buy one of my mohair stoles. She invited me back to her home for supper one night and I had a nice time. I escorted her to the kirk one Sunday. We’ve got a rare fine minister.”

  “I have to ask you this, sir,” said Hamish. “Did you know that Mrs. McNulty was suspected of being a prostitute?”

  “Never! A more respectable lady you could not wish to meet. That’s a nasty slander.”

  “I’ll leave that for the moment. Did she seem to be frightened of anyone?”

  “No.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “I can’t exactly remember. I phoned her several times but I didn’t get a reply.”

  “On her mobile?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll maybe get back to you.”

  Hamish went outside the shop and called Jimmy. “I didn’t see a mobile phone in her place,” he said. “Can you get the men to look for it? If we knew who’d been phoning her, that would be a great help. And did she have a computer?”

  “I’ll get them on to it. Getting anywhere?”

  “The two people I’ve talked to so far think she was the epitome of respectability,” said Hamish. “What gets me is if she was on the game, how did she advertise?”

  For the rest of the day, Hamish trudged from door to door until he was weary. At last he joined his grumbling animals in the police Land Rover and set out for Lochdubh after checking with Jimmy.

  He stopped halfway there and let them out for a run. The weather had turned cold again and he shivered as he walked up and down, waiting for the dog and cat to come back.

  He eventually got them back by rattling their feed bowls. “You’ve been fed already today,” he grumbled, “but if you’re good, I’ll find you something when we get home.”

  As Hamish drove along the waterfront of Lochdubh, he suddenly stopped the Land Rover and stared ahead at the police station. It was a clear starry night, and he could see smoke rising from his chimney.

  If someone wanted to ambush me, he thought, they’d hardly go to the trouble of lighting the fire. He drove on and parked outside. The kitchen light was on.

  The door was unlocked. He opened it and went inside.

  Elspeth Grant was sitting at his kitchen table. Hamish felt a sudden surge of gladness. She looked more like the old Elspeth than the citified one she had become recently. Her hair was frizzy and formed a halo round her face. Her peculiar silvery eyes looked at him seriously. She was wearing a black cashmere sweater over black corduroy trousers and black suede boots.

  “Who’s dead?” asked Hamish.

  “I came to ask you that. Th
is murder over at Bonar. I went straight there but I couldn’t find you.”

  “I meant the black clothes.”

  “I was sent up here in a hurry, and put on the first things that came to hand.” The cat let out a slow hiss and Lugs glared up at her.

  “I see your two wives are as jealous as ever,” said Elspeth.

  “Just cut that out,” said Hamish. “I’d forgotten what a nasty piece of work you could be.”

  “Simmer down. You’ve forgotten what a help I can be.” She fished in a bag at her feet and produced a bottle of whisky. “Want a dram?”

  “I could do with one.” Hamish sat down with a sigh. “Then I need to eat something.”

  “Have a glass and then I’ll take you to the Italian restaurant.”

  “Can I take Lugs and Sonsie with us? They’ll give them something in the kitchen. And don’t look at me in that pitying way.”

  “Sure. Bring them by all means.” Elspeth opened the bottle as Hamish put two glasses on the table. She poured them each a generous measure.

  There was a knock at the kitchen door. “If that’s my photographer, get rid of him,” said Elspeth. “He’s the world’s worst bore.”

  But it was Lesley. “I came to get my pot and plate,” she said. “Oh, you’ve got company.”

  Hamish made the introductions. “A reporter!” exclaimed Lesley. “You should know better than speak to the press.”

  “We’re old friends,” said Elspeth. “And Hamish knows I never use anything without his permission.”

  Lesley stood awkwardly. “Anyway, I came to pick up my things and thank you for the flowers. They were beautiful.”

  Elspeth wished she would go away. But her innate highland courtesy, combined with the fact that this was a forensic expert who might have some interesting details, prompted her to say, “I was just about to take Hamish out for dinner. Why don’t you join us?”

  “I don’t want to barge in . . .”

  “It’s all right. Give her a glass, Hamish, and then when we finish our drinks, we’ll walk along to the restaurant.”