Death of a Prankster

by Beaton, M. C.

  ‘I’m haunted,’ gasped Melissa. ‘That laughter.’

  Both men stood and listened. Nothing.

  ‘I heard it,’ wailed Melissa.

  And suddenly, the hellish laughter started again.

  Enrico went to the fireplace and peered up the chimney.

  ‘Jackdaws,’ he said in disgust. ‘And I took a nest out of this chimney only last year.’

  ‘You must be a townee,’ said the policeman. Melissa sank down on the edge of the bed. ‘It’s dreadful,’ she said. ‘Are you sure it’s only jackdaws?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the policeman. ‘Right nasty noise they make.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you, but I was so frightened. You see, someone tried the handle of my door last night.’

  ‘What time was this?’ asked the policeman.

  ‘About two o’clock this morning.’

  ‘You should have rung the bell then,’ he said severely.

  Melissa put a hand up to her head. ‘I was so frightened, I couldn’t move. The only reason I found courage to ring that bell this morning was because it was daylight.’

  Paul Sinclair appeared in the doorway. ‘What’s going on, Melissa?’

  Melissa told him about the turning doorknob and the jackdaws.

  Paul blushed. ‘Actually, I tried your door last night. I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘At two in the morning?’ asked the policeman suspiciously.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Paul defiantly, ‘and we are engaged to be married.’

  Enrico straightened up from the fireplace. ‘I can prepare you an early breakfast if you would like.’

  ‘Oh, that would be nice,’ said Melissa, feeling a little surge of power, despite her recent distress, at being able to give orders to a servant. ‘Some scrambled eggs and coffee, Enrico, and what would you like, darling?’

  ‘Just toast and coffee,’ said Paul. ‘I’ll see you downstairs, Melissa. Won’t be long.’

  After they had all gone, Melissa began to wash and dress. They would have servants, she thought. Perhaps a couple to live in. Not British. A couple of foreigners. Of course, only the terribly rich could afford servants, but Paul would be very rich if he did not give all that money away to his mother. Melissa’s soft lips moulded themselves into a hard line. Why should he? Why should Jan have everything? They could have a flat in town and perhaps a nice old farmhouse in the country. That would be nice. Chintz and beams, and put the car away, Costas, and tell Juanita to bring in the drinks for our guests. Yes, all that should be hers. And clothes like those worn by Priscilla. Expensive, subtle clothes. Real materials, silk and fine jersey wool and chiffon velvet. But seats at the theatre, a box, even. First nights. Little parties. Villa in the south of France. Send the servants ahead with the luggage and tell them to get things ready. Plane to Marseilles and Costas waiting with the white Rolls-Royce to run them along the coast to where their summer home was perched on a thyme-scented hill above the blue of the Mediterranean. Parents at the wedding …

  The dream began to splinter. Mum and Dad would need to wear nice clothes and be very, very quiet so that no one could hear their accents. And smelly old Auntie Vera was definitely not coming. Hairbrush poised above her head, Melissa thought, why get married in church at all? Simple service in a registry office, brief visit home to Mum. Surprise, surprise. Got married. Isn’t it fun? So no embarrassment of working-class parents and relatives at the wedding. Yes, that was the way to do it. Now to get Paul to keep that money. Why should both of us work? If he loved her, he would surely rather please her than his mother. Give the old trout something, but not all.

  Dreams of wealth were so rosy that they kept the fear engendered by the murders at bay and so the more highly coloured they became in Melissa’s mind.

  She went down the stairs determined to start work on Paul right away.

  Jeffrey Trent wandered into his nieces’ bedroom later that morning. ‘What a storm last night!’ he said. ‘I could hardly sleep.’

  Betty was sitting at the dressing-table unrolling old-fashioned steel curlers from her head. Angela was sitting up in bed, reading The Times.

  ‘I slept through it all,’ said Betty to Jeffrey’s reflection in the mirror. ‘Are you still set on leaving Jan?’ she went on. ‘I mean, it does seem rather odd in someone of your age.’

  ‘Meaning I shall shortly die an unhappy man anyway? No, Betty, I plan to enjoy myself.’

  Angela put down the paper. ‘I’ve often wondered why you married Jan in the first place. I liked your first wife, Pauline. Very sweet.’

  ‘She was all right,’ said Jeffrey, ‘but a bit frigid, if you must know. That was the attraction about Jan. She hooked me into bed half an hour after she had first met me.’

  ‘Jeffrey!’ Betty looked at him in distress.

  ‘Well, it’s the truth. Manipulating bitch that she was. Oh, it was a successful marriage right up until the money began to dry up. Now I’m going to get my revenge. It’s a pity I can’t talk Paul out of giving her any money.’

  ‘Talking about money,’ said Angela, ‘I do think it’s awful that Charles hasn’t got anything.’

  ‘I suppose we could give him some,’ said Betty. ‘What do you think, Jeffrey? I mean, we’re going to have millions each, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, even after death duties. I think I’ll give him something myself … and tell Jan.’

  Angela looked uncomfortable. ‘You mustn’t be so spiteful. After all, you’re getting your freedom. Leave the woman alone. Why so bitter?’

  ‘You haven’t been married,’ said Jeffrey, ‘so you don’t know what it’s like to be sucked dry of money. That parasite deserves every pain I can give her.’

  ‘Jeffrey is being quite horrible,’ said Jan to her son. ‘He seems determined to ruin me.’

  Paul pushed at the frame of his glasses with a nervous finger and looked owlishly at his mother. ‘You’d best get a divorce, and quickly,’ he said, ‘and then you’ll be shot of him. Why are you still sharing the same bedroom? Enrico could find you another.’

  ‘I’m not going to let him off easily,’ said Jan. ‘I’m going to make him pay and pay.’

  ‘If he beetles off to South America, as he’s threatening to do, you won’t be able to get anything out of him. Don’t worry. Haven’t I promised to give you my share?’

  Jan’s eyes misted over with grateful tears. ‘You are the very best son any mother could have. What is it, Melissa? I didn’t see you standing there.’

  ‘I just wanted a word with Paul,’ said Melissa.

  Paul took her hand. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘We’re listening.’

  ‘In private, Paul.’

  Paul smiled at his mother and then went out with Melissa, who led him upstairs to her bedroom. She locked the door behind him. ‘Just so that we’re not disturbed. The police have started their damned questions again.’

  ‘What do you want to talk to me about?’ asked Paul.

  ‘Well, it’s about us. You’ve asked me to marry you and yet we’ve never made love or anything.’

  Paul blushed. ‘Plenty of time for that after we’re married.’

  ‘But you might kiss me or something like that.’ Melissa gently took off his glasses.

  Paul, who was a virgin, was not destined to remain so. If anyone had told him that a bare quarter of an hour after kissing Melissa he would be lying in bed naked with her, he would not have believed them. But that was how it happened. Quick, sharp, clumsy, but most satisfying. He felt marvellous. He felt ten feet tall.

  ‘What do you say to a flat in town and a cottage in the country, somewhere near the research station, when we’re married?’ he realized Melissa was saying.

  ‘Take a lot of money for that,’ he said sleepily.

  Melissa took his hand and laid it on her breast. ‘But you’ll have a lot of money,’ she pointed out.

  He caressed her breast, marvelling at the smoothness of her skin. ‘Trouble is, I’ve promised Mother the lot.�
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  ‘Now that’s silly,’ cooed Melissa. ‘I mean, she doesn’t need it all. A bit for her and the rest for us. That’s fair. You wouldn’t want to deprive our children of a good education.

  ‘Children,’ said Melissa softly. ‘Lots and lots of them and we may as well start now.’

  She did a few ecstatic things to his body. Paul’s last thought before another wave of red passion crashed over his head was that his mother was not going to be very pleased.

  At last he fell asleep, wrapped in her arms. Awake, Melissa stared at the ceiling and thought hard. It was not that she was mercenary, she told an imaginary Hamish Macbeth. It was just that if Paul was going to get all that money, why should she let him give it away? Like most women of low self-esteem, Melissa was like six characters in search of an author, always looking for a role to play to keep reality at bay. The new one was to be wife and mother. But rich wife and mother.

  Hamish Macbeth and Priscilla were speeding down the A9 to Perth. ‘I feel a bit guilty about this,’ said Hamish. ‘It’s like a holiday. It’s like not having to go to school on exam day.’

  ‘We might find out something,’ said Priscilla. ‘Thank goodness, they haven’t had the snow down here as bad as we did in Sutherland.’

  ‘I’ve never asked you,’ said Hamish curiously, ‘what you think of being stuck in Lochdubh all year round. I mean, you used to go off to London for most of the year.’

  ‘Oh, I like it. It suits me. It was a bit of a shock at first, I mean having to live permanently in an hotel. It’s not as if we ever close down. But ever since Mr Johnson took over as manager, things have been much easier. Daddy’s had the architects in. We’re going to build a gift shop next to the hotel and I’m going to run it. No tourist trash. I’m going to have all the best Scottish stuff I can find. After all, the sort of guests we have can afford to pay for the best. I can always go and stay with a friend in London if I feel I want a break from Sutherland.’

  ‘It was just what Charles Trent said started me thinking. I mean, your father’s English.’

  ‘Never let him hear you say that,’ said Priscilla in mock horror. ‘He’s ordered a kilt – evening dress. He says the guests will like it. What do you think of them all at Arrat House the further away you get from it?’

  Hamish gave a groan. ‘They all seem quite ordinary. Now if old Mr Trent had been alive and someone else had been killed, I would point to him and say, “There’s your murderer.” I mean, you have to be wrong in the head to want to go on playing awful jokes like that and know everyone hates you for it.’

  ‘I wonder if he did know,’ said Priscilla. ‘There’s Blair Atholl Castle. Not far to go now. I mean, everyone toadied to him in a way. Look, no snow here at all and the sun is shining. Another world.’

  Hamish took out notes he had made on the case and studied them until Priscilla drove into Perth. ‘We’ll start with the hospital,’ said Priscilla. ‘Have you got Charles Trent’s date of birth?’

  ‘Yes, he told Anderson it was November 5, l964.’

  The main hospital had no record of a Charles Trent or in fact a Charles anything having been born at the right time. Adoption societies seemed to be housed in the larger towns like Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

  ‘This is a waste of time,’ said Hamish. ‘All this way on a wild-goose chase.’

  ‘Let’s have lunch,’ said Priscilla, ‘and find out what to do next.’

  ‘As long as I’m paying,’ said Hamish. Her remark about him being a moocher still rankled, though why this latest remark should rankle when previous ones had not he had not worked out – or did not want to work out.

  ‘What about a burger then?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t insult me. I meant a proper lunch. Mr Johnson said there was a good wine bar in the centre.’

  The wine bar turned out to be very good indeed, and to Priscilla’s relief the prices were modest. Hamish began to enjoy himself. Perth, he thought, was a little gem of a town – good shops, good restaurants and the beauty of the River Tay sliding through its centre.

  They were sitting over cups of excellent coffee when Priscilla called the waitress over and asked her if there were any hospitals on the outskirts of Perth, or maternity homes. ‘There’s a wee cottage hospital on the road out to the west,’ said the waitress. ‘It’s called the Jamieson Hospital. Blaimore Road.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Priscilla triumphantly. ‘We can try there.’

  ‘Before we do,’ said Hamish, ‘let’s go to where Andrew Trent used to live and see if any of the neighbours can remember him.’

  Andrew Trent’s former home was on the outskirts of the town, a large brown sandstone double-fronted house, with a bleak gravelled stretch in front of it ornamented with dreary laurels in wooden tubs. A legend above the door proclaimed it to be the Dunromin Hotel. As they approached the main doors, they could see various geriatric guests peering at them from a front lounge window, like so many inquisitive tortoises.

  The air inside had an institutional smell of Brown Windsor Soup, disinfectant and wax polish.

  The girl at reception fetched the owner, who turned out to be an old lady of grim appearance. ‘Well, out with it!’ she demanded. She jerked a gnarled thumb in the direction of the lounge. ‘Whit’s that lot been complaining about now?’

  ‘We are not here because of a complaint,’ began Priscilla.

  ‘Just as well,’ said the owner. ‘They’re never satisfied. Always phoning up their nieces or nephews or sons or daughters to say they’re being cheated or getting poisoned or some such rubbish.’ Priscilla gathered Dunromin was one of those sad hotels which catered for permanent elderly residents cast off by their families, who did not want the indignities of the nursing home and so settled for the indignities of the cheap hotel instead.

  ‘What we wanted to ask you, Mrs …?’ said Hamish.

  ‘Miss Trotter.’

  ‘What we wanted to ask you, Miss Trotter, was whether you bought this house from Andrew Trent, who used to live here in the early sixties.’

  ‘Aye, I did. And what’s it to you, may I ask? I paid a fair price for it.’

  ‘Look,’ said Priscilla patiently, ‘Mr Macbeth here is a policeman investigating the murder of Andrew Trent. Did you not read about the murder in the newspapers?’

  Miss Trotter’s eyes gleamed. ‘Oh, it was him, then. I thought it was someone else. That’s a bit of luck. Mrs Arthur at Ben Nevis next door is always bragging about how the chap that mugged old Mrs Flint once stayed there. I’ll have a murdered man. She’ll be green with envy. Yes, that will put madam in her place. In fact, I’ll just get my coat and run over there.’

  ‘Before you go,’ said Hamish, ‘did Mr Trent have a baby in the house when you came to buy it?’

  ‘Not that I can recall.’

  ‘What about the other neighbours?’

  ‘You could try Mrs Cumrie, two doors away on the right. She was here when I moved in.’

  Mrs Cumrie was very old, wrinkled and frail, but with bright sharp eyes. Yes, she said, she remembered Andrew Trent and had not liked him one bit. No, he hadn’t played any tricks on her. She had thought him a bully. He always seemed to be shouting and complaining about something or another. Yes, she remembered the baby. She did not know he had adopted it. She had assumed it belonged to some relative who was staying in the house. The baby had had a nanny, but she couldn’t remember the woman’s name or whether she had been a local.

  ‘So that’s that,’ said Hamish.

  ‘Not yet,’ pointed out Priscilla. ‘We’ve still got the Jamieson Hospital.’

  Her spirits sank, however, when they arrived outside the hospital. It was small but new, certainly newer than thirty years.

  They asked for the matron and put their request to her. She shook her head. ‘I would help you if I could,’ she said. ‘But the hospital was burnt down ten years ago and all the records were lost in the fire.’

  They gloomily thanked her and rose to go. They were jus
t getting into the car when the matron appeared at the entrance and called them back.

  ‘I’ve just had a thought,’ she said. ‘My mother was a midwife in Perth for years. She might be the one to help you. Even if she can’t, she’d be right glad of some company. Wait a minute, and I’ll write the address down for you.’

  ‘I suppose we’d better try everything since we’re here,’ said Hamish as they drove off. ‘I’d clean forgotten about midwives. Charles Trent’s mother could have had the baby at home.’

  The matron’s mother was a Mrs Macdonald. She lived in a small neat council house, new on the outside, but belonging to an older age on the inside where it was furnished with horsehair-stuffed chairs and bedecked with photographs in silver frames. Although very old, Mrs Macdonald was a tiny, agile woman. She insisted they had tea and as soon as it was served began to hand them one photograph after another, telling them about deliveries long past and their difficulties. ‘I was a great amateur photographer in my day,’ said Mrs Macdonald. ‘These were all taken with a box Brownie. Now that little laddie there is now Ballie Ferguson. He sometimes comes to see me, yes. You’ll be having children of your own one day, Miss Halburton-Smythe, but I suppose you’ll be going into the hospital. It’s become fashionable again to have babies at home, though. Funny how the old ways come back.’

  ‘Mrs Macdonald,’ said Hamish desperately. ‘I am a policeman, investigating the murder of a Mr Andrew Trent. You may have read about it in the newspapers.’

  ‘And this one here,’ said Mrs Macdonald, apparently deaf to his question, handing a photograph to Priscilla, ‘is Mary McCrumb. She calls herself Josie Duval now and runs a wee French restaurant in Glasgow. She never did like the name McCrumb. Pretty baby and an easy delivery.’