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Knock, Knock, You're Dead!
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Knock, Knock,
You’re Dead!
A Hamish Macbeth Short Story
M.C. Beaton
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It was a glorious autumn day in the highlands and the normally lazy Police Constable Macbeth was moved by conscience out of the deckchair in the front garden of the police station in Lochdubh to make some overdue calls on some of the outlying croft houses.
He periodically checked on the old and the single to make sure they were not in need of any help. He put his cat, Sonsie, and his dog, Lugs, into the back of the Land Rover and set out from the village of Lochdubh in Sutherland and up into the hills.
The sky was clear blue, turning the loch behind him to sapphire and the soaring mountains of Sutherland ahead of him into ranges of blue, from light to dark stretching into the distance. His first call was on Mrs. Morag McPhie, a widow, who worked as a crofter. As he drove up to the low croft house, her sheep were cropping at the thin grass and her two sheepdogs were basking in the sun outside the front door.
The door was open. He called Morag. She appeared wiping her hands on her apron.
Morag McPhie was a small, round, sturdy woman in her fifties. She had rosy cheeks, black hair flecked with grey and light grey eyes. She was wearing a T-shirt over a long black skirt and serviceable boots.
“It’s yourself, Hamish,” she said. “Come ben. I’ll be glad of an excuse to put the kettle on and sit down. Unless you want a dram?”
“Not when I’m driving,” said Hamish, removing his peaked cap. “But tea would be grand.”
As Morag seemed to be in the best of health, Hamish felt he really ought to move on, but golden days like this were so rare in the highlands, and the stone-flagged kitchen, gilded with sunlight, was so welcoming that he decided to stay for a little.
Morag came back with a laden tray. “Help yourself to some of my fairy cakes,” she said. “My, that hair of yours is like a beacon.”
Hamish grinned and ran his hand through his fiery red hair.
“So how are you getting on?” asked Hamish.
“I’m fine. I got a letter today from Elsie.” Elsie was Morag’s daughter, who had moved to Australia. “I wish I could go and see her, but I can’t afford the fare. There’s not much money in sheep these days.”
“Hardly worth the work,” agreed Hamish, who had sheep of his own.
“I was thinking,” said Morag, pouring tea, “that maybe I might have something in the parlour worth selling. Alistair Menzies over in Rogart, he got five thousand pounds for an old teapot.”
“I cannot help you,” said Hamish. ”I don’t know about antiques. Why don’t you call the auctioneers in Inverness and ask them to send up a valuator? He’d soon let you know if you had anything worthwhile. By the by, if you think you might have anything valuable, you shouldnae be leaving your door open.”
Morag laughed. “Oh, nobody comes up here.”
* * *
Two days later, Hamish was on his road back from Cnothan, a sour town which had been added to his extensive beat, when he saw a young man standing beside a dusty Ford Escort, looking helpless. He braked and got down from his Land Rover. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know,” said the young man. “The damn car just stopped.”
“Let me have a look.” Hamish climbed into the car, turned the ignition and studied the dashboard. Then he climbed out again. “You’re out of petrol. Didn’t you see the sign lit up?”
“It’s an old car. There always seems to be some sign or other lit up.”
“I’ve got a can in the back,” said Hamish. “I’ll give you a couple of gallons and then you’d better drive into Lochdubh to the garage. Have you far to go?”
“Back to Inverness. This is very kind of you. I’m Harry French. I’m a valuator for the auction house, Berhams, in Inverness.”
“Hamish Macbeth,” said Hamish. He emptied two gallons into the tank of the Ford.
“I’ll be glad to get back,” said Harry. “It’s that teapot over at Rogart, the one that got all the money. Ever since the story got in the papers, everyone in the highlands seems to think they’ve got a valuable antique. I’m new to the job, so I get all the work.”
“There’s a lady up outside Lochdubh that might have something really good,” said Hamish. “I tell you what, follow me to the village and get petrol and then I’ll give you directions.”
“That’s good of you. I’m really tired and I’d just like to get home,” said Harry.
Hamish studied him. He was a tall, thin young man with a pleasant open face topped with a mop of fair curly hair. “Tell you what, I won’t charge you for the petrol if you call on this woman. It won’t take you long, and you’d be doing me a favour.”
“Oh, very well,” said Harry reluctantly.
* * *
In Lochdubh, Hamish gave Harry his mobile phone number and asked him to call him if it turned out Morag had anything valuable.
But he waited and waited and there was no call.
* * *
Dusk was turning the surroundings violet and grey when Hamish, back in his front garden with his animals at his feet, heard the phone inside the police station send out its shrill ringing.
He reluctantly ran in and answered it. Morag’s voice came on the line. “She’s dead!” she wailed. “It’s murder!”
“Quiet, now, Morag. Who’s dead?”
“Sarah Parkinson.”
“Where?”
“In my parlour!”
“Don’t touch anything. I’ll be right there.”
Hamish phoned police headquarters and then ran out, jumped into the police Land Rover, and set off.
* * *
Morag was waiting for him outside her croft house. Her normally rosy face was paper white.
“What happened? Were you there?” asked Hamish, as he pulled a forensic boiler suit out of the back of the Land Rover and began to struggle into it.
“No,” wailed Morag. “I was up with the sheep at the communal grazings. I came back. The door was standing wide open. The dogs ran into the house afore me and began to howl. I looked in the parlour and there was Nosy Harrison, dead on the floor.”
Sarah Harrison was an elderly resident of Lochdubh who had gained her nickname by prying into everyone’s affairs.
She lay in the middle of the little parlour floor. Someone had struck her a savage blow on the front of her head, and her face was a mask of blood.
The parlour, like most parlours in the highlands, was hardly ever used. It was kept for occasions, such as for weddings, funerals, or a visit from the minister. A little two-seater sofa and an armchair were still covered in the shop’s plastic wrappings. The mantelpiece and two small tables were laden with framed pho
tographs and china ornaments. A painting of highland cows, mountains, and loch hung over the fireplace. A chest of drawers was covered by a lace cloth. On top of the lace cloth a china lady in a pink dress held a brown Alsatian on a lead.
Hamish went back outside and joined Morag, who was sitting on a bench outside her house.
“Did a young man from the auctioneers in Inverness call on you?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Morag. “I just got down from the grazings, walked in, and saw that.”
The first evening star pricked the sky overhead, and in the distance Hamish could hear the wailing approach of police sirens.
He got up, went to the Land Rover, and took out a powerful torch. He shone it on the heathery track leading up to the croft house, but the weather had been dry recently and it was hard to tell if a car had approached the house.
He went back and joined Morag. “What was Mrs. Harrison doing in your house?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but she was a menace. She was always dropping in at odd times of the day with her malicious gossip.”
“Start locking your door when you go out. I warned you.”
“Too late now,” said Morag, and she began to cry.
* * *
Soon the whole paraphernalia of a murder investigation had arrived: forensic team, pathologist, procurator fiscal, ambulance, and the bane of Hamish’s life, Detective Chief Inspector Blair.
Hamish described the finding of the body. ”Aye, well,” said Blair, “the experts are here now, laddie, so move your arse down to that hick village of yours and start banging on doors. See if anyone’s seen strangers.”
“I met a valuator earlier,” said Hamish. “From the auctioneers. Mrs. McPhie was anxious to find out if she had anything valuable. I told him to call on her.”
“Name?”
“Harry French.”
“Right, I’ll get Inverness police on to it. Off with you.”
But Hamish went instead to the nearest croft house, owned by Sandy Sinclair. Sandy and his wife and four children were watching television when he arrived.
They listened in horror when Hamish told them of the murder.
“So did you see anyone strange around?” asked Hamish.
“There was one of thae knockers around here yesterday,” said Sandy.
Hamish’s hazel eyes gleamed. Knockers were men or women who went around houses looking for antiques, usually with the purpose of cheating innocent house owners out of valuable pieces.
“Description?”
“A tall, gypsy-looking woman. I sent her packing, but she left her card.”
“Have you got it?”
Sandy went to the sideboard and rummaged through some papers. “Here it is,” he said at last.
The card bore the inscription “Sheila Fraser” and an address at a caravan site in Lochinver.
He went outside and phoned Detective Sergeant Jimmy Anderson, Blair’s sidekick, and gave him the news.
“Good work,” said Jimmy. “We’ll get on to it.”
Hamish checked other croft houses in the area but no one had seen the knocker.
He then moved back to Lochdubh and called at various addresses but with the same lack of success.
* * *
When he returned to the police station, he found himself wondering why Harry French, the valuator, had not called on Morag. He had seemed a pleasant young man.
He looked up the Highlands and Islands phone directory and found an H. French listed at an address in Inverness and dialed it.
Harry came on the line. “This is Hamish Macbeth here. Did you call on Morag McPhie?”
“Oh, I am sorry, Mr. Macbeth,” said Harry. “The police have been round this evening taking my statement. I was so tired. I tried to follow your directions but kept getting lost, so I gave up and went straight back to Inverness.”
* * *
Hamish was just getting ready for bed when his mobile phone rang. It was Jimmy. “That knocker has been arrested,” he said.
“Has she confessed?”
“No, she said she hadn’t been there, but thank God folks watch all those forensic programmes on the TV. We told her we could find out if she’d been in the cottage if she’d even breathed inside it. People don’t know our drunken, rugby-mad forensic team will probably take a year to come up with anything. She said she’d walked in because the door was open. She looked in the parlour, saw the body, and got the hell out of there.”
“I suppose that was enough for Blair.”
“Curse it was. Sheila Fraser’s a gypsy, and Blair hates gypsies. The very fact she’s a gypsy makes her guilty.”
“And what do you think?”
“Don’t know. She’s got a record but minor stuff: shoplifting, drunkenness, disturbance of the peace, that sort of thing. I have an uneasy feeling she was telling the truth.”
* * *
Hamish went back to Morag’s cottage the next morning. She was sitting outside on the bench, a stricken look on her face. He ducked under the police tape and joined her.
“Where’s everyone?” he asked.
“They’ve got someone for the murder. I can clean the parlour now but I cannae face it.”
“I’ll just be having a wee look.”
Hamish went into the little parlour and looked around. It had only one small window, and the room was dark. He switched on the light. He went carefully round and round, examining everything, and then stooped down and examined the floor.
The floor was stone flagged. “There was a carpet here, wasn’t there?” he called.
“They took it away to examine it,” came Morag’s voice.
Hamish was about to turn away when he saw a small scrape on the stone beside the chest of drawers.
He got down on his knees and studied it. It looked as if the scrape had been made by someone trying to pull the chest of drawers forward.
He stood up and removed the ornament from the top and then the lace cover. It looked like a plain chest with four drawers.
Hamish went out and joined Morag. “That chest of drawers. Where did you get it?”
“Oh, that was my granny’s. She was in service at Brom Castle as a lady’s maid, and Lady Nethers told her when granny was going to get married to take a piece of furniture so she took that.”
Hamish went to the Land Rover and came back with a digital camera. He took several pictures of the chest of drawers.
“I’ll call back as soon as I can,” he said. “Don’t let anyone take anything out of the house, no matter who they are. Phone me first.”
* * *
He drove down to Inverness. He was confident that Blair would not be looking for him, as he would consider the case closed.
At the auction house, there was a young man at the reception desk, not Harry French.
Hamish introduced himself and showed the photographs of the chest of drawers, which he had printed off at a machine in a chemist’s shop in Inverness.
“I wonder if this piece of furniture is of any value?” he asked.
“I’ll get the expert,” said the young man.
“Harry French?”
“No, he’s off today, romancing the boss’s daughter. Not much hope there.”
“Why?” asked Hamish.
“Oh, father and daughter are the same. If you haven’t any money, you’re of no interest, but Harry’s fair besotted with the girl. I’ll get Mr. King.”
He returned after a short time with a tall, languid man. He shook hands with Hamish. He studied the photographs and let out a low whistle.
“Anything?” asked Hamish.
“If this is real,” said Mr. King, “it’s a George the First burr walnut chest of drawers. God, look at that patina!”
“How much?” asked Hamish.
“You could be looking at eighty thousand pounds. Where can I get my hands on it?”
“I’ll tell you, but I’ve got to phone the woman first and say you are coming.”
*
* *
After Hamish had made the phone call, he caught Mr. King by the sleeve of his jacket as that man was rushing out of the door. “A minute. Where can I find Harry French?”
“Day off.”
“Where does he live?”
“Ask Malkie at the desk.”
* * *
Harry French lived in a flat in a Victorian villa, which had been divided up into flats on the banks of the River Ness.
Hamish pressed the bell to Harry’s flat and waited. At first he thought the valuator might not be at home, but then the door opened and Harry French stood there. He turned white at the sight of Hamish.
“Can I come in?” asked Hamish.
“The place is a mess and—”
“I don’t think you’ll want what I have to say to be heard out on the street.”
Harry backed away. Hamish walked past him and into a cluttered living room. Empty beer bottles were lying on a low coffee table, and the remains of a pizza lay in its box.
Hamish decided to take a leaf out of Jimmy’s book and baffle the young man with science. “I will need a sample of your DNA,” he began.
“Why?” asked Harry. “I never went near that woman.”
Hamish took out a long Q-tip and a plastic bag. He prayed it looked like the real thing. “Open your mouth,” he ordered. “You left some hairs at the scene, and although you wore gloves, you sweated through them.”
Harry sank down on the sofa and buried his head in his hands.
Hamish sat next to him. “Out with it,” he said. “We’re going to get you with the forensics so you may as well come clean.”
In a muffled voice, Harry began to talk while Hamish rapidly made notes. He had gone to Morag’s cottage. There was no one at home. He had looked in the windows and, as he had looked in the parlour window, a shaft of sunlight had shone straight on to the chest of drawers. “It glowed like a jewel,” whispered Harry.
He took a tyre iron out of his car to jemmy the door but found it unlocked. He decided to steal the chest of drawers and sell it as his own. He needed money. He wanted to marry Fiona, the boss’s daughter.
Knock, Knock, You're Dead!: A Hamish Macbeth Short Story Page 1