Death of a Scriptwriter

by Beaton, M. C.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the chief inspector is the murderer.’

  ‘How do they work that out?’

  ‘He’s obsessed with Lady Harriet and murders her butler so that he can get her up from England to investigate.’

  ‘But he gets into bed with her.’

  ‘Well, she’s supposed to seduce him to find out what he knows.’

  ‘And where does the rising tide come in?’

  ‘The butler’s body is found on the beach, and Lady Harriet judges the time of death from the high tide mark.’

  ‘I believe Patricia’s book got quite good reviews.’

  ‘When you read it, it’s all convoluted and sounds convincing, although her style is a bit wordy and precious for me. What does “pathic” mean?’

  ‘Don’t know. Give me a sentence.’

  ‘“She gave him a pathic smile.” I looked it up. It said victim, catamite, passive. Could mean she smiled like a victim or gave a passive smile. Can’t be a catamite smile, surely? I agree with Orwell: if you have to look up words in the dictionary, don’t use them.’

  ‘Maybe Patricia didn’t have to look it up in the dictionary.’

  ‘Maybe. What happens now?’

  ‘I drive you back to Drim, where the police will interrogate you. The press tonight will be followed tomorrow by the world’s press: “Beautiful Actress Murdered”. Blair will be under intense pressure. Remember that and just answer calmly.’

  ‘How do we get back? They’ll hardly fly us there in a helicopter.’

  Hamish took out a mobile telephone. ‘Inverness police’ll get us back.’

  They were driven straight back to Drim Castle. Major Neal had the fire lit in the main hall because, although the weather was warm outside and still light because it was at the time of the year when it hardly ever got dark, the castle was cold and gloomy.

  Jimmy Anderson came out to meet Hamish and Sheila. ‘Follow me,’ he said to Sheila. ‘Mr Blair wants a word with ye.’

  Hamish would have liked to accompany her but was sure that Blair would order him away. He joined the party round the fire. Most of the television crew seemed to be there.

  Harry Frame scowled at Hamish. Then he said, ‘I say we go on. We can’t let all this publicity go for nothing. We’ll raise money selling that last shot of Penelope to every television company from here to Moscow.’

  ‘Aren’t the police hanging on to that?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Got several copies,’ said Harry. He turned to Fiona. ‘What about Mary Hoyle?’

  ‘She’s a fine actress, but no tottie, nor will she shed her clothes.’

  ‘I’m fed up with totties. I want a good, solid actress to pull us through this. You know her reputation. She’s got a photographic memory. Also, she’s not doing anything at the moment.’

  ‘I’d settle for anyone who would keep their mouth shut and just work. But can we really go on?’

  ‘Of course we go on,’ said Harry. ‘With all this publicity, by the time it goes out, we’ll have a huge audience.’

  The door of the castle opened and a woman police officer led Patricia in. She looked white and tired and had lost all her usual confidence. ‘Wait here until they’re ready for you,’ ordered the policewoman.

  Patricia sat down at the edge of the group, clutching her large handbag.

  A silence fell. Patricia was a writer and not one of them. Hamish took his chair round and sat next to her.

  ‘You’ll be asked where you were today,’ he said.

  ‘It’s difficult to prove,’ said Patricia miserably. She started and dropped her handbag as Jenkins, the maître d’ from the hotel, came in. ‘What’s he doing here?’ she hissed.

  Hamish rose and went forward.

  ‘I don’t want you,’ said Jenkins, arms as usual slightly akimbo, as if carrying an imaginary tray. ‘I want the man in charge. It’s important.’

  Glad of an excuse to get into that interviewing room and rescue Sheila, Hamish nodded and left the hall. The interviewing was taking place in Fiona’s office. Blair stopped in mid-bark and glared at Hamish. ‘Whit dae ye want?’

  ‘Jenkins, the maître d’ from the Tommel Castle Hotel, is here. He says he has information for you.’

  Blair’s eyes gleamed. ‘Send him in. I’ll talk more to you later, Miss Burford. Don’t leave.’

  Hamish went out with Sheila. ‘Bad time?’ he asked sympathetically.

  ‘It was awful. He practically accused me of the murder.’

  ‘That’s his way. He’s aye trying to fright a confession out of someone or other, and I’ve neffer known it to work.’

  Sheila joined the others at the fire, and Hamish signalled to Jenkins. He was determined to stay in the interviewing room and hear what the man had to say.

  So when Jenkins took a seat in front of the desk facing Blair, Hamish slid to a corner of the room and sat down.

  Jenkins introduced himself.

  ‘So what have ye to tell us?’ demanded Blair.

  ‘I was on duty in the castle dining room last night,’ said Jenkins. ‘Miss Penelope Gates had dinner on her own. She ordered a bottle of champagne and drank the lot. Then she saw that writer, Miss Martyn-Broyd, come in. I gather from gossip that there was apparently some sex scene and Miss Martyn-Broyd and Mr Jessop, the minister, had been reassured it was not so. Miss Gates told Miss Martyn-Broyd that she had been tricked, that there was in fact a sex scene, and she called her books dreary. Miss Martyn-Broyd was distressed and weeping. To my way of thinking,’ said Jenkins pompously, ‘her mind was so overset that she probably murdered Miss Gates.’

  ‘If that’s all ye’ve got to say,’ said Blair, looking at him with dislike, ‘ye can go.’

  Jenkins departed in a huff.

  ‘Has that writer woman arrived yet?’ demanded Blair.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hamish.

  Blair glared at him for a moment, as if debating whether to tell him that he should not be in the interviewing room, but then said, ‘Fetch her in.’

  Jimmy Anderson went out. Hamish stayed where he was.

  Patricia came in. She was quite white, but now composed.

  Blair started the questioning in his usual unsubtle way.

  ‘Where were you today?’

  ‘At what time, Officer?’

  ‘Chief Inspector. We’ll start with when you got up.’

  ‘I made breakfast and wrote another few pages of my new book. Then I went out for a drive.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I was distressed over what the television people were doing with my book. I know Miss Gates is dead and de mortuis and all that, but she was a horrible, vicious and vulgar woman. She sneered at me in the Tommel Castle Hotel the evening before and told me that what I had been assured was not going to be a pornographic scene was in fact going to be just that. She said they had tricked me into believing it otherwise. I was very, very upset. I could not write properly. So I drove and drove mindlessly. I had planned to drive to Drim and confront them, but I had no courage left. I do not know where I drove or for how long, but I suddenly realized I was hungry. I found myself in Golspie and went to the Sutherland Arms Hotel for a bar lunch. Then I returned home.’

  ‘We’ll check with the Sutherland Arms Hotel. What is the make and registration number of your car?’

  Patricia gave it to him.

  ‘The way I see it,’ said Blair with a fat smile, ‘is that you, more than anyone else, had a good reason to want Penelope Gates dead. She had jeered at you about how you had been tricked, and you admit your mind was overset. So you went to Drim and you climbed up that mountain. You heard Penelope being instructed to stand on that rock. You scrambled around in the mist until you were underneath and then you grabbed her ankle and pulled her over.’

  ‘That is ridiculous,’ said Patricia coolly. ‘May I point out that it is now after midnight and I am very tired.’

  Blair struck the desk. ‘We’re all bloody tired, woman! But you will stay here until
ah’m finished with you.’ His Glasgow accent, which he usually modified when speaking to the ‘toffs’ such as Jenkins and Patricia, suddenly thickened.

  * * *

  Sheila sat in the hall with the others and waited. She was feeling hard done by. It had transpired that the company lawyers had been present when all the others had been interviewed, but to her complaint Harry had given a massive shrug and said the lawyers needed their sleep.

  For the first time, Sheila began to wonder who had really murdered Penelope. It was no longer an intellectual exercise. One of them in this castle, probably one of them around the fire, had murdered Penelope. No one was mourning her; no one had a good word to say for her.

  Hamish Macbeth awoke the next morning as the alarm shrilled. He felt very tired. He had had about four hours’ sleep.

  He ran over in his mind the events of the night before. Fiona said she had been nowhere near Penelope, but there was no proof of that. Gervase had no firm alibi. With the mist so thick, anyone could have been anywhere.

  He wondered if the BBC would go for a new actress and changed script or if the whole thing would just fall through.

  He rose and washed and dressed. He then went into the kitchen to prepare himself some breakfast. Rain drummed steadily down outside, the first rain for many days.

  There was a tentative knock at the door. He sighed. Probably some local looking for gossip. But when he opened the door, it was to find Patricia Martyn-Broyd.

  ‘I must speak to you, Hamish,’ she said. There were black circles under her eyes, panda-like against the parchment of her old skin.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘I was just preparing breakfast. Can I be getting you something?’

  ‘I couldn’t eat a thing,’ said Patricia.

  ‘Sit yourself down anyway and have a coffee.’

  Patricia waited while Hamish prepared two cups of coffee and then sat down at the kitchen table opposite her.

  ‘I am in bad trouble,’ said Patricia.

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  She looked at him impatiently. ‘I am suspected of murdering that creature.’

  ‘That’s Blair’s way. He goes on as if he suspects everyone.’

  ‘But don’t you see! I am the one with the strongest motive.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. She had threatened to get Fiona King, Gervase Hart and Sheila Burford fired. And they were all up on the mountain with her. Also, Harry Frame let slip last night that there had been some change of mind at BBC Scotland and they wanted more of a traditional detective series, in which case Penelope and her beautiful body would not have been needed all that much. But then, I hardly think Harry Frame would shove her over a cliff to get rid of her. If you have not murdered Penelope Gates, then you have nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I am not stupid!’ said Patricia. ‘I came here to get your help and to get away from the press. I have no alibi, and that man Blair, under pressure from the media, is determined to make an arrest, any arrest. I want you, Hamish Macbeth, to find out who really murdered Penelope.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘I formed the opinion that you are not lacking in intelligence. From the church gossip at Cnothan, I discovered that you had solved crimes before, and all on your own initiative.’

  ‘I will do my best, of course, to find out who did it,’ said Hamish cautiously. ‘But I do not have the resources of Strathbane.’

  ‘Nonetheless, I am relying on you. I am not a poor woman. I can pay you.’

  ‘That’s not necessary. May I suggest if you don’t want any breakfast that you go home and get some sleep?’

  ‘I can’t with all those press around.’

  ‘As you have pointed out, you’re not a poor woman. Take a room at the hotel. They’ll have the keepers posted at the gates to keep the press out.’

  ‘I shall do that. Will you keep me informed of any developments?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I can, but I would suggest you try to remember where you were driving. Someone might have seen you.’

  When she left, he fried himself some bacon and eggs. He did not have any newspaper delivered, usually buying one at Patel’s. The tabloids would be having a field day publishing naked pictures of Penelope. It was as well that husband of hers was dead.

  The phone rang constantly in the police office, and each time the answering machine clicked on. Calls from the press.

  Then a truculent call from Blair. ‘I know you’re there, you lazy Hielan hound. Pick up that writer woman and bring her back here. Move your arse.’

  Hamish sighed. Poor Patricia. And yet why should he think poor Patricia? The woman was armoured in rigid pride. But she was also lonely and vulnerable under that carapace. He finished his breakfast, checked on his sheep and hens and set out to collect Patricia.

  Chapter Six

  Nay, Nay! You must not hastily

  To such conclusions jump.

  – Lewis Carroll

  ‘Don’t you want to get a lawyer?’ asked Hamish Macbeth as he drove Patricia towards Drim.

  ‘I hate lawyers,’ said Patricia, stifling a yawn. ‘Oh, why did that wretched man want to see me now? I could have done with a few hours’ sleep.’

  ‘Once your interrogation is over,’ said Hamish, ‘it might be a good idea if you just get on with your writing and forget about the television thing. All this has been driving you frantic.’

  ‘But not enough to murder anyone,’ said Patricia sharply. ‘People of my generation do not murder.’

  Hamish thought briefly of several well-known murderers of Patricia’s generation but refrained from telling her about them. He was glad of an opportunity to go to Drim again to see what he could find out.

  But he found he was not being allowed to sit in on the interview with Patricia. ‘We’ve got enough people here,’ snarled Blair.

  Hamish wandered outside the castle. Sheila came up to him. Her bright blue eyes looked up into his own. ‘There’s something you should know,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Let’s go somewhere private.’

  They walked past various members of the television company, most of whom seemed to have mobile phones glued to their ears. ‘Do they need to use these phones so much?’ asked Hamish curiously. ‘Mobile phone calls are expensive.’

  ‘You know what we say in the business?’ said Sheila wryly. ‘If we don’t use our mobile phones at least every fifteen minutes, our self-esteem drops.’

  They walked towards the village. Various members of the press were circling around like jackals, cameramen lugged their equipment, television news crews had their vans parked along the road leading to the castle.

  ‘What a circus,’ said Sheila. ‘How long will they stay?’

  ‘A few days,’ said Hamish, ‘and then some other news will take them all away.’ He looked around. ‘No one about. So what do you have to tell me?’

  ‘Well, don’t let anyone know where you got this information from. Harry Frame called us all together and said none of us were to talk to the police or the press. We should all stick together.’

  ‘So what’s your news?’

  ‘Some of the crew were in the restaurant and heard Penelope telling Gervase she wouldn’t act with him any longer.’

  ‘We know that.’

  ‘But Gervase was heard threatening to kill her.’

  They walked on in silence. Then Hamish said, ‘It might mean nothing at all. People get angry and say, “I’ll kill you,” quite a lot. She said she would get you fired. Did you threaten to kill her?’

  ‘No, of course not . . . Oh, my God!’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘I had a row with her, and as I left her caravan, I shouted, “I hope you break your neck.” I was thinking about the shoot up on the mountain, which was scheduled for the following day.’

  ‘I can’t help thinking about the first murder,’ said Hamish slowly. ‘I’m uneasy about that.’

  ‘You think Josh didn’t do it?’

  ‘The only evidence is that
blood on his hands. Blair was so keen to wrap the thing up that he didn’t look any further.’

  ‘But I heard that Josh was shouting, “I’ll kill him,” by two policemen in St Vincent Street in Glasgow.’

  ‘That’s puzzling me. He sees a photo of his wife, naked, on the book jacket advertisement, and yet he says, “I’ll kill him.”’

  ‘Jamie’s name was on the back of the book jacket as scriptwriter, I gather.’

  ‘But why should Josh immediately decide that Jamie was to blame? What about Harry Frame?’

  ‘We’ll never know.’

  ‘Wait a bit. Can I use your mobile?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘I thought you had one.’

  ‘But I can’t really charge for this call.’

  She fished her phone out of her handbag and handed it to him. ‘Be my guest.’

  Hamish sat down on a rock at the side of the road, and Sheila sank down into the heather beside the rock.

  Hamish phoned directory enquiries and got the telephone number of John Smith’s bookshop. Then he phoned the bookshop, identified himself and asked to speak to the assistant who had served Josh.

  ‘Liz Turnbull,’ said a voice after a wait.

  ‘Miss Turnbull,’ said Hamish, ‘I am Police Constable Hamish Macbeth of Lochdubh in Sutherland. You served Josh Gates with an ordnance survey map?’

  ‘The man who killed that scriptwriter. Yes. He was in a right taking.’

  ‘Now outside on the street, two policemen heard him subsequently say, “I’ll kill him.”’

  There was a silence, and then Liz Turnbull said, ‘Her. He said “her”.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘One of the assistants was coming back from his break. He told me.’

  ‘Could I speak to him?’

  ‘Sure, hold on.’

  Hamish waited. From the other end of the phone came the noisy sounds of a busy bookshop. Then a man’s voice said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is PC Hamish Macbeth. And you are . . .?’

  ‘Hugh Roy.’

  ‘Mr Roy, I gather that you overheard Josh Gates out in the street saying, “I’ll kill her.”’

  ‘Yes, I was just coming back from my break.’