by M C Beaton
‘I came across his stupid play one evening after Animal Firm, the best thing I’d ever written, had been rejected by the National Theatre. Peter’s play was so awful, it was priceless. I was about to throw it away when I thought suddenly that if I polished it up a bit and changed the title, it might appeal to all the Peter Bartletts of this world who wanted something that wouldn’t strain their brains. I gave it to an impresario who thought up the idea of having it expensively dressed and bringing back some of the famous lords and dames of the theatre. When it took off, I thought I’d better square Peter, but I couldn’t find him. I didn’t know he’d gone back to the army. When all the publicity began to appear and Peter didn’t get in touch with me, I thought I was safe. The title was different and a good lot of the lines were mine – or rather, I’d polished up Peter’s lines.
‘When I saw him here, I felt sick. But it dawned on me very quickly he hadn’t a clue I’d used his play. I didn’t think he’d be likely to see it. It was ages since he’d been to the theatre. Then Pruney started quoting from it. He came to my room that night. I told him he had no way of proving it was his play, but he said he could dig up some old friends he had told at the time about it, and that he would make enough of a stink to cast doubts on the authorship. Then he said I could have the fame if he could have the money – all of it. I agreed, but I knew I’d have to kill him. Sooner or later, he’d tell someone. He was proud it had been put on and thought it a famous joke. He wouldn’t have kept it secret long, not with the way he drank.’ Henry fell silent. Anderson and MacNab moved towards him, but stopped as he began to speak again.
‘I didn’t think of shooting him. Not at first. I stayed up all night, keeping a watch on his door. I saw Vera go in and Pruney listening, but I couldn’t get nearer to hear what was said. I thought if he came out to go on the prowl, I’d push him down the stairs or something like that. I nearly fell asleep, nearly was asleep when he came out with his shooting togs on. The rest was as you described. I put the cleaning stuff and a raincoat in that box and hid it in a bush behind one of those pillars at the gates. I knew I had to move the box because sooner or later the police would find it. Funny, if I’d just wiped my fingerprints off everything and dumped it . . . Still, I can’t think of everything,’ said Henry with a ghastly social smile. ‘I gave the parcel to that journalist. He never thought anything odd about it. I was lucky all along. Yes, Vera blackmailed me. I had to make love to her to convince her I was a gentle, caring soul and not a murderer. I promised to pay her to keep quiet about the play. But I knew I’d have to get rid of her as well.’ He turned in his chair towards Priscilla, who shrank away from him. ‘No publicity is bad publicity. Isn’t that right, darling?’ As Anderson and MacNab came up on either side of him, he rose to his feet. ‘You should see your stupid faces,’ he said. And then he began to laugh. He was still laughing as they led him from the room.
The trial of Henry Withering, with all its attendant publicity, was over at last. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, who had vague thoughts of returning to her job, stayed on at Tommel Castle instead. Winter was settling down on the Sutherland mountains.
Colonel and Mrs Halburton-Smythe had been shocked and shaken over Henry Withering’s arrest. Their shock had not improved their attitude to their daughter. Fear of what might have happened to her made them treat her more like a fragile blossom than ever. They kept begging her not to return to London, to stay in Sutherland where it was ‘safe’ from doubtful suitors such as Henry.
It was when they said they had invited Jeremy Pomfret to dinner and made it obvious they had begun to look on him in the light of a possible son-in-law that Priscilla decided to make her escape back to London.
Jeremy, who had sworn not to stay at Tommel Castle again, had nonetheless accepted the invitation. He had enjoyed all the publicity surrounding the murder trial and seeing his picture in the newspapers, and so the cold castle had become endowed with a certain glamour in his eyes. It was small comfort to Priscilla that that glamour obviously did not extend to herself. She had not seen Hamish since the day Henry had been accused of murder. Her parents were, irrationally, furious with Hamish, blaming him obscurely for all the notoriety that had descended on their home.
Priscilla thought Hamish might have gone to Strathbane, for surely the solving of two murders would be enough to give a village constable instant promotion. She was surprised one morning to hear Jenkins complaining that Hamish Macbeth was becoming lazier and ruder every day.
All at once Priscilla wanted to see Hamish, to talk about the murder, to talk as much of it out of her brain as possible. It was a forbidden subject at Tommel Castle.
She drove down to Lochdubh, hearing her car tyres crackle over puddles of ice in the road, seeing the snowcapped mountains glittering against a pale blue sky.
The police station looked deserted and, for a moment, she thought Jenkins might have been mistaken and Hamish had left.
She made her way round the back of the station. Hamish was just climbing over the fence into his garden from the croft at the back, two empty feed pails in his hands. His red hair flamed in the sunlight and his tall, lanky figure looked safe and reassuring.
He stood for a moment watching Priscilla, and then he walked forward.
‘I didn’t think you were going to speak to me again,’ he said.
Priscilla smiled. ‘I’ve been upset and shocked, Hamish. But I’ve got over it now. I’m thinking of leaving for London next week.’
‘Aye, going back to the same job?’
‘No, I’ve lost that. It was a silly little job anyway with a miserable pay. I think I might train for something – computers or something.’
‘Come into the kitchen and I’ll make us some tea.’
Priscilla followed Hamish into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Towser put his head in her lap and gazed up at her soulfully.
‘I thought you would have been promoted,’ said Priscilla, stroking Towser’s head and watching Hamish as he got the tea things out of the cupboard.
‘Didn’t you hear?’ said Hamish. ‘Poor Mr Chalmers. He died of a heart attack. Blair took the credit for everything. Didn’t you read about it in the reports of the trial?’
‘I wasn’t called as a witness,’ said Priscilla, ‘and Mummy and Daddy told the servants to stop delivery of the newspapers.’
‘I thought Jeremy Pomfret might have told you,’ said Hamish, giving her a sidelong look.
‘Jessie’s been gossiping,’ said Priscilla.
‘Sounded to me like you were going to be Mrs Pomfret.’
‘Let’s not talk about Jeremy. Didn’t either of those two detectives tell anyone it was you who was responsible for solving the murders?’
‘No, they have to work with Blair.’
‘But Rory Grant wrote a dramatic exclusive about how you solved the murder.’
‘It was an exclusive. The other papers, and some of them with much bigger circulations, carried Blair’s version. Nobody could write anything until after the trial. Sub judice. By that time Chalmers was dead. I’m glad in a way. I like it here.’
‘Yes,’ said Priscilla, wondering not for the first time why Hamish’s homely, cluttered police station always seemed a safer, cosier, and more welcome place than Tommel Castle.
He put a cup of tea in front of her. ‘Bring it through to the living room,’ he said. ‘I’ve been making some improvements.’
Priscilla obediently walked through to the living room and then stood and looked around. There was a new carpet on the floor, a warm red shaggy carpet. The walls had been newly papered and two pretty chintz-covered armchairs were placed in front of the fire.
‘This is lovely, Hamish,’ said Priscilla. ‘How on earth could you afford all this? I know you send every penny home.’
Hamish grinned. ‘I kept a wee bit o’ the grouse money back for myself.’
‘The grouse money?’
‘Aye, it was the morning of the murder. I found Angus, the poacher, dead-dru
nk down at the harbour with a brace o’ grouse in his back pocket. I was going to return them to your father. Well, there was the murder and all. That helicopter was standing by, and after I had taken down the pilot’s statement, I remembered Captain Bartlett telling me the pilot had instructions to hand over two thousand pounds for the first brace. So I went to my car where I’d left Angus’s birds and took them and handed them over.’
He beamed at her proudly.
Priscilla carefully put down her cup and got to her feet. ‘A man had been shot, his chest blown away,’ she said in a thin voice, ‘and all you could think of, you great moocher, was how to turn it to your advantage!’
She turned and ran from the house.
Hamish stood for a moment, staring at the spot where she had been.
Then he sprinted out of the room, out of the house and into the garden.
Priscilla was standing by her car, leaning her head on the roof. Her shoulders were shaking.
He came cautiously up behind her. ‘Dinnae take it so hard,’ he pleaded. ‘It iss not me who’s the murderer.’
She turned round and buried her face on his shoulder.
‘Priscilla,’ said Hamish suspiciously, ‘I have a feeling you’re laughing.’ He tilted up her head.
‘Oh, Hamish,’ giggled Priscilla, ‘you are the most shocking man I know.’
Hamish rolled his eyes. ‘Do you hear?’ he cried to a passing seagull. ‘Here’s her that gets engaged tae criminals telling the force of law and order in Lochdubh that he’s shocking. Come along then, Priscilla, and I’ll get us something to eat.’
‘What? Grouse?’ demanded Priscilla, still giggling.
‘Aye, I just might hae a wee bit.’
With a companionable arm about her shoulders, he led her towards the police station, pushed her gently inside, followed her in, and closed the door firmly behind them on the cold outside world.
DEATH of an
OUTSIDER
A Hamish Macbeth Murder Mystery
M. C. BEATON
ROBINSON
London
FOR THE LAIRG VOLUNTEER FIRE
BRIGADE . . . GOD BLESS ’EM
Sub-Officer
John Corbett
Leading Fireman
Archie Fraser
Leading Fireman
Willie McKay
Fireman
William Ross
Fireman
Michael Corbett
Fireman
Duncan Matheson
Chapter One
See, the happy moron,
He doesn’t give a damn,
I wish I were a moron,
My God! Perhaps I am!
– Anonymous
Constable Hamish Macbeth sat in the small country bus that was bearing him away from Lochdubh – away from the west coast of Sutherland, away from his police-station home. His dog, Towser, a great yellowish mongrel, put a large paw on his knee, but the policeman did not notice. The dog sighed and heaved itself up on to the seat beside him and joined his master in staring out of the window.
The bus driver was new to the job. ‘Nae dugs on the seats,’ he growled over his shoulder, determined not to be intimidated by Hamish’s uniform. But the constable gave him a look of such vacant stupidity that the driver, a Lowland Scot who considered all Highlanders inbred, decided it was useless to pursue the matter.
Misery did make Hamish Macbeth look dull-witted. It seemed as if only a short time ago he had been happy and comfortable in his own police station in Lochdubh, and then orders had come that he was to relieve Sergeant MacGregor at Cnothan, a crofting town in the centre of Sutherland. In vain had he invented a crime wave in Lochdubh. He was told that protecting the occasional battered wife and arresting a drunk once every two months did not amount to a crime wave. He was to lock up the police station and go by bus, for Sergeant MacGregor wished his stand-in to keep his car in running order.
Hamish hated change almost as much as he hated work. He had the tenancy of some croft land next to the police station at Lochdubh, where he kept a small herd of sheep, now being looked after by a neighbour. He earned quite good money on the side from his small farming, his poaching, and the prize money he won for hill running at the Highland Games in the summer. All that he could save went to his mother and father and brothers and sisters over in Cromarty. He did not anticipate any easy pickings in Cnothan.
Crofters, or hill farmers, always need another job because usually the croft or smallholding is too small a farm to supply a livelihood. So crofters are also postmen, forestry workers, shopkeepers, and, in the rare case of Hamish Macbeth, policemen.
It was the end of January, and the north of Scotland was still in the grip of almost perpetual night. The sun rose shortly after nine in the morning, where it sulked along the horizon for a few hours before disappearing around two in the afternoon. The fields were brown and scraggly, the heather moors, dismal rain-sodden wastes, and ghostly wreaths of mist hung on the sides of the tall mountains.
There were only a few passengers on the bus. The Currie sisters, Jessie and Nessie, two spinster residents of Lochdubh, were talking in high shrill voices. ‘Amn’t I just telling you, Nessie?’ came the voice of Jessie. ‘I went over to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at Strathbane last week and I says to the mannie, “I want a humane trap to catch the ferret that has been savaging our ducks.” He gives me the trap, and he says, “You take this here humane trap, and you humanely catch your ferret, and then, if you want my advice, you will humanely club the wee bastard to death.” Sich a going-on! And him supposed to be against cruelty. I have written to our Member of Parliament to complain most strongly.’
‘You told me a hundred times,’ grumbled Nessie. ‘Maybe he was right. For all you caught in that humane trap was the minister’s cat. Why don’t you tell Mr Macbeth about it?’
‘Him!’ screeched Jessie. ‘That constable is a poacher and it was probably his ferret.’
The bus jerked to a halt and the sisters alighted, still quarrelling.
Three months in Cnothan, thought Hamish, absent-mindedly scratching Towser behind the ears. They say Lochdubh is quiet, but nothing ever happens in Cnothan, and nothing ever will. Did I not have the two murders in Lochdubh?
He thought of the murder that had taken place last summer and how it appeared to have brought him closer to the love of his life, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. But Priscilla, the daughter of a local landowner, had then left, just before Christmas, to go to London to find work. She never stayed away for very long. She might even be heading north now, and would return to Lochdubh to find him gone.
‘And she will not be caring one little bit!’ said Hamish suddenly and loudly. The bus driver bent over the wheel and congratulated himself on his decision to leave this crazy copper alone.
Hamish knew Cnothan and thought it must be the dullest place in the world. Although designated a town, it was about the size of a tiny English village. He remembered the inhabitants as being a close, secretive, religious bunch who considered anyone from outside an interloper.
At last, he was the only passenger left on the bus. The bus lurched and screeched around hairpin bends, finally racing out of the shadow of the tall pillared mountains to plunge down into the valley where Cnothan stood, in the middle of Sutherland.
Hamish climbed down stiffly and collected his belongings, which were packed into a haversack and an old leather suitcase. The bus departed with a roar and Hamish pushed his peaked hat back on his fiery hair and looked about him.
‘High noon in Cnothan,’ he muttered.
It was the lunch hour, which meant all the shops were closed and the main street was deserted. A savage wind screamed down it. Not even a piece of scrap paper was borne on the wind. The town had a scrubbed, grey, antiseptic look.
Cnothan stood on the edge of an artificial loch caused by one of the ugliest hydroelectric dams Hamish had ever seen. What you saw was what you got. There were no quaint lane
s or turnings. One straight main street led down to the loch. There were four grocer’s shops, which all sold pretty much the same sort of goods, a hardware, a garage, a craft shop, a hotel, a fish-and-chip shop, a butcher’s, a pub, and an enormous church. The government-subsidized housing was tucked away on the other side of the loch, segregated from Cnothan’s privately owned houses, which were all very small and drab and looked remarkably like the government ones.
The town was so barren, so empty, it reminded Hamish of scenes in a science-fiction movie he had once seen.
And yet he was aware of eyes watching him, eyes hidden behind the neatly drawn lace curtains.
He opened the garden gate of the bungalow nearest him, called Green Pastures, and went up and rang the brass ship’s bell that hung outside the door. Silence. A plaster gnome stared at him from the garden and the wind moaned drearily.
A mail-order magazine protruded from the rubbish bin beside the door. Hamish twisted his head and read the name on it. Mrs A. MacNeill. At last he heard footsteps approaching. The door was opened a few inches on a chain and a woman’s face peered through the crack, one of those sallow Spanish types of faces you find in the Highlands of Scotland.
‘What is it?’ she demanded.
Now Hamish knew in that instant that the woman knew exactly who he was. Her manner was too calm. For in a relatively crime-free area, the arrival of a policeman on the door-step usually creates terror because it means news of a death or accident.
‘I am Constable Macbeth,’ said Hamish pleasantly, ‘come to replace Mr MacGregor who is going on holiday. Where is the police station?’
‘I dinnae ken,’ said the woman. ‘Maybe it’s up the hill.’
‘At the top of the main street?’ asked Hamish. He knew the woman knew perfectly well where the police station was, but Hamish was an incomer, and in Cnothan, you never told incomers anything if you could help it.