by M C Beaton
“She can’t really do anything. Like I was saying to Sean, she probably knows that her previous criminal record would come out in court.”
“So he’ll be all right.” Elspeth took a sip of tea. “That is, unless he’s made a will in her favour.”
“What?”
“If he’s made a will in her favour, then he should change it pronto and let her know.”
“You don’t think she’d do anything to him?”
“Why not? She hammered that dog to death. She’s got a new lover who’ll probably swear blind she was with him the whole time if she did anything to Sean.”
“Maybe I’d better tell him to alter his will,” said Hamish slowly.
“Do it now.”
Hamish went through to the office and dialled Sean’s number. There was no reply. He returned to the kitchen. “Not there. He’s changing over to deer and building fences. He’s probably out in the fields.”
“Well, run over there and see him.”
“Elspeth. You’re panicking. Bella’s got a new patsy and he seems to have money. She’ll be happy with that.”
Her gypsy eyes surveyed him. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Look, Elspeth, chust because you write that astrology column doesn’t mean you haff the second sight,” said Hamish, his Highland accent becoming more sibilant in his irritation.
“In that case, you lazy copper, I’ll have a word with him myself.”
“Do what you like.”
Interfering busybody, thought Hamish sourly after she had left, and then almost immediately he felt guilty. Elspeth had only been trying to help.
He worked around his croft that afternoon, enjoying being out in the sunshine and clear air. When he was in the upper field, he heard the telephone ring inside the police station. He reluctantly headed back indoors to check the answering machine. Sean’s voice sounded out. “Bella’s coming to see me. She’s not going to ask for anything. Just a straightforward divorce on breakdown o’ marriage. She’s bringing the papers over.”
Hamish remembered Elspeth’s words. He got into the Land Rover and set off along the waterfront. He saw Elspeth leaving the newspaper office and jerked to a halt. “Jump in,” he called. “Sean’s phoned. Bella’s on her way to see him.”
Elspeth hopped in. “So you do think there’s some danger, after all?”
“Better to make sure there isn’t.”
“Then don’t drive right up to the door. Park a little way away. If she’s up to anything, we want to catch her in the act. If we’re not too late, that is.”
Hamish parked down at the bottom of the dirt road which led up to the croft house. There was a new Ford Metro parked outside. “Looks as if she’s here,” he said. “She must have learned to drive. Let’s hurry.”
“Look in the kitchen window first,” urged Elspeth. “If they’re just sitting there talking, we’ll knock on the door.”
There was no garden. Only springy heather below the cottage windows to muffle the sounds of their approach. Hamish crouched down and peered inside the kitchen window. Sean was lolling in a chair by the fireplace, his eyes closed. An open bottle of whisky was on the table with two glasses. Bella was standing with a shotgun, loading it. She was wearing thin plastic gloves. Then she knelt down and began to try to press one of Sean’s inert hands round the trigger.
Hamish darted to the door and flung it open. Mad with fright and rage, Bella turned round and Hamish and Elspeth threw themselves to the ground as the blast from the shotgun deafened them. Hamish leapt to his feet before she could fire again. He wrested the shotgun from her and got her down on the floor and handcuffed her while she screamed abuse. Hamish checked Sean’s pulse. He was still alive. He guessed that Bella had drugged him and was about to fake a suicide.
By the time reinforcements had arrived from Lochdubh, Bella was crying and saying that Sean had been trying to commit suicide and she had been trying to stop him.
“Well, that’s that,” said Hamish wearily when Bella had been taken away and Sean borne off in an ambulance. “At least we’ve got her now. She’ll be away for a long time.”
“That’ll teach you to listen to me in future,” said Elspeth. “Now I’m off to write up the story for the nationals.”
“Sub judice. You can’t say anything until after she’s charged.”
“Oh, yes I can. I just don’t mention her name. I just describe everything and say a woman is helping police with their enquiries. What about buying me dinner one night?”
“I’ll take you for dinner tomorrow night. The Italian’s.”
Back at the police station, Hamish sat down and typed out a lengthy report. Poor Jamie Stuart. The police would have already borne him off to Strathbane in case he turned out to have been Bella’s accomplice.
FIVE
Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi’ usquebae, we’ll face the devil!
—Robert Burns
The next few days passed quietly for Hamish. Sergeant Macgregor over in Cnothan had sourly agreed to cover for him while he was away on ‘holiday.’ The bombing of the major’s cottage had disappeared from even the local newspapers. Elspeth had cancelled their date for dinner, just saying she was ‘on a story.’ Hamish had been mildly surprised at his own disappointment.
The weather was not perfect. There had been two days of rain. But by the end of the week, the sun shone again. Purple heather blazed on the flanks of the two mountains above Lochdubh. Not a ripple disturbed the glassy water of the sea loch. It was hard to even think of violence as Hamish lounged in his deck chair in the front garden under the blue lamp with Lugs lying on his back at his feet, his paws in the air.
His peace was disturbed by Jimmy Anderson, who had come looking for the remains of that bottle of whisky. Hamish collected another deck chair, the bottle, and glasses, and Jimmy sat down with a sigh of pleasure.
“How are things at Stoyre?” asked Hamish.
Jimmy held up his glass, admiring the colour of the whisky in the sunlight, before taking a hearty swig of it. “Nothing,” said Jimmy laconically. “Same old business. Tight-lipped locals. The powers-that-be are pretty sure it was one o’ them.”
“I wonder why. I mean a fertiliser bomb probably takes a bit of knowledge of chemistry.”
“The fact is they don’t think all that much was used. Bit of newspaper, bit of fertiliser, fuel, and cotton, light it, chuck it inside, and run like hell. Leave the major’s Calor gas tanks to do the rest.”
“Still, it takes some knowledge.”
“Anyone could get the instructions how to make it off the Internet.”
“I wouldnae think anyone in Stoyre had a computer!”
“Anyone could go to the cyber café in Strathbane.”
Hamish eyed the detective shrewdly. “But they checked with the café and couldn’t find anyone who had been accessing the information.”
“Something like that.”
“I’m thinking of taking a bit of a holiday and going and staying there,” said Hamish.
“Waste of time off, if you ask me. Does Blair know about this?”
“No! And don’t breathe a word.”
“I won’t.”
“So nothing’s happening in Stoyre?”
“All quiet. They had a Burns reading o’ Tarn o’ Shanter at the kirk there last night.”
“Exciting stuff.”
“Read by some woman with a reedy voice. What’s tip-penny?”
“Oh, the stuff that makes you fear no evil. Twopenny ale.”
“And usquebae?”
“Whisky. The water of life. Don’t tell me you didn’t know?”
“Never could get my tongue around the Gaelic. That bomb was probably some nasty bit of anti-Englishness. Blair suggested as much to the major and then had to back-pedal, as the good major was threatening to take the whole village to the Race Relations
Board.”
“You know, there probably was never a people like the Scots to know so little about their own history. Do you know where the Scots came from, Jimmy?”
“I thought they were always here.”
“They came from Northern Ireland and proceeded to wipe out the Celts and the Picts in one of the biggest acts o’ genocide in history. The trouble’s always caused by the Lowlanders, not us. They live in a Gaelic twilight with tartan fringes. Anyway, to get back to Stoyre, what’s the mood like? Are the folks scared?”
“No. There’s an odd atmosphere there. A sort of suppressed excitement, like kids before Christmas.”
“That’s verra interesting. I can’t wait to get there now. But I’ll keep clear until the authorities have gone.”
“Shouldn’t be long now. If it had been a big professional bomb, they’d have been there for a long time. But everything now points to the locals.”
The garden gate creaked and Elspeth walked in. She was wearing a near-transparent Indian blouse covered in what looked like little bits of mirror. Her shorts were very short, showing strong tanned legs ending in her usual clumpy boots.
“What about having that dinner this evening?” she asked Hamish.
“All right. I’ll see you at the Italian’s at eight.”
Elspeth smiled at Jimmy. “See you there, Hamish,” she said.
“Man,” breathed Jimmy when she had left. “You are one lucky man. What a smasher!”
“Elspeth? She’s just the local reporter.”
“I know. I’ve met her before, remember? I didn’t know she was keen on you.”
“We are chust friends,” said Hamish stiffly.
“Wish I had a friend like that,” leered Jimmy.
“She does wear weird clothes.”
“Move with the times. You’re getting old·fashioned, Hamish.”
Hamish found Elspeth waiting for him when he arrived at the restaurant that evening. She was wearing a brightly coloured jacket made of diamond-cut pieces of coloured velvet over a faded black T·shirt and a long black chiffon skirt. And the boots.
He had a sudden picture of Priscilla sitting there, impeccably dressed and without a hair out of place, and felt a dark sadness. Elspeth’s hair was no longer aubergine but it stood out all over her head as if she had stuck her finger in an electric socket. He noticed as he sat down that her fingernails were painted black.
Hamish had made a promise to himself never to refer to any part of Elspeth’s appearance again—after all, how she looked or what she wore was none of his business—but he found himself saying sharply, “What have you done wi’ your nails? They make your hands look as if you’d shut them in a car door.”
“Sit down, shut up, and choose something to eat,” said Elspeth amiably. “I’m starving.”
Willie Lamont, the waiter, who had been a policeman until he married a relative of the restaurant owner, came up to take their order. “What’ll it be, Hamish?” he asked.
“Why don’t you ask the lady first what she wants?” chided Hamish.
“Right. Michty me, lassie, your nails are black.”
“And michty me, the service in here is rotten. Do you usually make personal remarks to your customers?”
“Sorry,” mumbled Willie. “What’s it to be?”
“Caesar salad first and then lasagne.”
“I’ll have a mixed salad and then the penne wi’ the basil sauce. And bring us a bottle of the house wine,” said Hamish.
Willie wrote down their order and then lingered, moving from foot to foot.
“What?” demanded Hamish.
“Funny business ower at Stoyre,” said Willie.
“Know anything about it?”
“No, but I’m keeping my ear to the ground.”
“Grand. Now, how’s about getting us the food?”
“Lucia wonders when you’re coming to see wee Hamish, your godchild.”
“Tell her I’ll be along soon.”
“He’s taking his first steps and you havenae been there to see it.”
“Willie! Food!”
Elspeth watched Willie retreat to the kitchen with their orders. “What does Lucia see in him?” she asked.
“He cleans. He’s mad about cleaning. He does all the housework. That’s why Lucia adores him.”
“So what’s been happening about Stoyre?” asked Elspeth. “I’ve just been over there.”
“You’ll know more about it than I do. Find out anything?”
“No, but something bad’s going on.”
“How?”
“I sense it.”
“I’m going to do something more practical about finding out,” said Hamish. He told her about his planned holiday there.
“I’ve some leave owing,” said Elspeth. “I could come with you.”
“And where would you stay?”
“Wherever you’re staying, of course.”
“That would antagonise that God-fearing community no end. They would say we were living in sin.”
“Well, I’ll drop over and see you.”
Hamish began to feel hunted. “Chust leave me be to get on wi’ my investigation,” he said quietly.
Elspeth turned a little pink and looked relieved when Willie arrived with the wine.
“So what’s been going on in Lochdubh that I don’t know about?” asked Hamish to break the awkward silence which had followed his last remark.
“Maybe there’s something you could do to help,” said Elspeth. “Do you know old Mrs. Docherty?”
“Of course. I havenae seen her for a while.”
“She’s all alone. She needs professional care. She’s rambling in her mind and should really be in a nursing home.”
“Has she any relatives?”
“Just a daughter down in Glasgow. Mrs. Wellington has written to her several times but she never replies.”
“What nursing home could she go into?”
“There’s a new one just outside Braikie.”
“I’d forgotten about that one. It’s called The Pines.”
“Maybe you could call on her and persuade her to go there. Mind you, it would mean selling her cottage.” They talked together amicably and Hamish had to admit to himself afterwards that he had enjoyed the evening.
Hamish called on Mrs. Docherty the following day. The front door was standing open so he put his head round it and called, “Mrs. Docherty! It’s me, Hamish.”
“Come in,” called a surprisingly strong voice.
He walked into a small cluttered parlour. Mrs. Docherty looked as hale and hearty as the last time he had seen her. Her grey hair was thick and her large figure was not stooped. Her face was criss-crossed with a multitude of wrinkles and her faded grey eyes were alert.
“Sit down, Hamish,” she said. “You can make us a cup of tea after you explain why you’ve called.”
“It’s a social visit,” said Hamish awkwardly.
Her intelligent eyes surveyed him with amusement.
“Och, I heard you were getting senile,” Hamish blurted out, and then turned dark red with embarrassment.
She laughed. “Don’t look so upset. Most people weary me. I have my books and my computer to keep me amused. So when people I don’t like call round, I mumble and drool. Maybe I’d better stop it or they’ll be dragging me off to some nursing home.”
“I hear there’s a new one outside Braikie.”
“Not all that new. It’s been there for a year. I wouldn’t go there even if I was on my last legs.”
“Why?”
“I think they kill people,” she said.
“Och, come on. I’d have heard about it.”
“I had a good friend over in Braikie,” she said. “Maisie Freeman. She got very frail and her family persuaded her to go into The Pines. It’s a private nursing home, but if you sign over your house to them, they promise the best care and medical attention until the day you die. She only had her married daughter to look after her, Aileen, and
Aileen is a selfish cow. Her husband’s pretty well off so the loss of Maisie’s house when she did die wasn’t going to bother them. They just wanted rid of Maisie. She was, like I said, a bit frail but she had all her faculties. I visited her. I didn’t like the staff much, very creepy and smarmy. Anyway, Maisie lasted only four weeks.”
“What happened to her?”
“She fell down a flight of steps and broke her neck. Now, the rooms are all on the ground floor and the offices upstairs. She had no reason to go upstairs.”
“Maybe she wanted to complain to the manager.”
“Then she would have sent for him. She had rheumatoid arthritis. She’d no more have tackled those stairs than she would have thought of climbing Everest.”
“What did the nursing home say?”
“They said Maisie’s mind had gone and she must have wandered upstairs not knowing where she was and lost her footing. I visited her two days before her death and she was as bright as a button. But you know how it is. People think the very old are a waste of space anyway. You know what I think will happen in the future? I think they’ll find a way to extend life for a very long time and keep people young-looking. The criminal element amongst the young will hate all these oldies hanging on to jobs and taking up space on the planet. Someone will start issuing dates of birth on the Internet and they’ll start bumping all the oldies off.”
“I tell you what,” said Hamish. “I’ll go over there and have a talk to them.”
“I don’t see how you can find anything out. I’ve a good bit of money put by. People don’t know that. I’m tempted to check myself in there and see what happens.”
“If what you think is true, it could be dangerous.”
“Not if I pretend to be senile. I mean not all the time, because I’d need to look as if I had my wits about me some days to check in.”
“It would mean signing your cottage over to them.”
“It would be a risk and a bit of excitement for me.”
“Hold on,” said Hamish. “I mean houses in the Highlands don’t command that much money on the market. If patients started dropping like flies soon after they were admitted, there’d be an enquiry.”
“I think they’d be clever about it. I mean it’s only old people on their last legs who go into nursing homes.”