Hamish Macbeth Omnibus

by M C Beaton

  ‘Why?’ asked Hamish. ‘I mean, why does he put people’s backs up?’

  ‘I think he likes power,’ said Jamie, ‘and irritating people is a sort of twisted way of getting it. See here, I can’t believe my luck. I’ve worked hard, but I was a road worker’s boy and came up from nothing. At the back of my mind, there’s always the fear that all this will melt away like the fairy gold. Mainwaring senses that and does his best to make me feel insecure. He’d make a good blackmailer.’

  ‘Would you say his wife is frightened of him?’ asked Hamish, enjoying all this gossip immensely.

  ‘Aye, and I wonder why. She’s a big, strong woman, and though he’s a big, strong man, you’d think she could still make mincemeat of him if she liked. You know that business o’ the witches?’

  Hamish nodded.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t put it past him to have stage-managed the whole thing himself. Mrs Mainwaring likes a dram, and she was a bit squiffy yesterday morning and told Mrs Grant in the town that she thought he was jealous of her popularity. Mrs Grant told Mrs MacNeill, who told Mrs Struthers, who told my wife, who told me.’

  ‘Some marriages are awf’y sad,’ said Hamish.

  ‘They are that,’ agreed Jamie, ‘and none so sad as the Mainwarings’.’

  Hamish thought deeply for a few moments, and then said, ‘I am still surprised he got the extra croft land just like that. There’s a lot of land greed in the Highlands.’

  ‘Like I said, he was popular in the beginning,’ said Jamie, ‘although I don’t believe the man knew it. He took shyness and diffidence among the locals for rebuff. Then his aunt had been very well-liked in the community. They didn’t like to put up objections. When they did, it was too late. You know crofters, Hamish. They don’t know their own laws. They learn distorted facts from each other by word of mouth. It was just after he acquired the crofts that he started throwing his weight about.’

  ‘So his aunt wasn’t English?’

  ‘Oh, no. But as far as I can gather, Mainwaring was born and brought up in England. His aunt, Mrs Drummond, had been here since the day of her marriage about fifty years ago. Brian Drummond, her husband, died about ten years before she did. I think the Mainwarings are quite rich and Mrs Drummond belonged to the mother’s side, which hadn’t much of the ready. Mainwaring came up on a lot of flying visits before she died.’

  ‘And who was it objected to him getting the crofts?’

  ‘Two of them. Alec Birrell over at Dunain, that’s on the other side of Cnothan, and Davey Macdonald, also from Dunain. How Mainwaring got to learn who had written in to object to him, I’m not sure, except at that time he was friendly with that wee weasel who works at the Crofters Commission, Peter Watson, so he could’ve told him. Anyway, a few months after they objected, both lost a couple of dozen sheep each one night. They accused Mainwaring of having taken them away out of spite, but since there was no proof and the sheep were never found, there was nothing Sergeant MacGregor could do.’

  Heartened by the friendly visit, Hamish returned to the police station. He saw, as he drove past, that Jenny was working in her gallery. Once inside the station, he brushed his hair and his uniform. The snow was still blowing past the window, but it was getting thinner and tinged with pale yellow as the sun fought to get through. He picked a bottle of aftershave out of the bathroom cabinet. MacGregor’s. It was called Muscle, and the advertising on the packet said it was for truly masculine men. Hamish opened it and sniffed. It smelled pleasantly of sandalwood. He splashed some on his chin, and feeling quite strange and exotic, for he had never used aftershave before, he decided to go across the road and visit Jenny Lovelace.

  And then the phone in the office began to ring. Cursing, he went through to answer it.

  The voice at the other end was husky and Highland. ‘Murder,’ it said. ‘A body on the top o’ Clachan Mohr. Come quick.’ And then the receiver at the other end was replaced.

  Heart beating hard, Hamish studied the ordnance survey map on the wall. Clachan Mohr was a craggy cliff outside the village, a relic of the ancient days when the long arms of the sea reached into the heart of Sutherland.

  He drove at breakneck speed down the main street with the police siren blaring. A mile to the east, dimly visible through the snow, rose the steep sides of Clachan Mohr. He hurtled round the hairpin bends towards it, tyres screeching through the snow, until he parked the Land Rover in its shadows. There was a thin rabbit track of a path winding upwards. He set off, wishing he had worn his climbing boots, for the grass was slippery with snow and he kept sliding back. He was agile and athletic, but it took him nearly half an hour to reach the top. The snow thinned again, and there, at the very edge of the cliff, lay the body of a man, his red pullover clearly distinguishable against the blinding white of the snow. Someone’s got Mainwaring, thought Hamish, his mind working out times. How on earth could someone have had time to murder the man on the top of Clachan Mohr when Hamish had seen him only a short time ago?

  And then he stiffened when he was still a few yards from the body. All at once, he knew he was being watched. He felt it. Then he thought . . . the body is just now getting covered with snow and yet that phone call was almost an hour ago.

  He stood still, listening with his sixth sense, feeling for where those watchers might be. He sniffed the air like a dog. There was a faint tang of human sweat and stale tobacco. He saw a patch of gorse bushes to his left and suddenly dived towards it. Alistair Gunn and Dougie Macdonald rose sheepishly to their feet. ‘I’ll deal with you in a minute,’ snapped Hamish. He ran to the body. It was, as he had already suspected, a dummy made out of old clothes stuffed with newspapers.

  He came back and looked coldly at the two shuffling and grinning ghillies. ‘Jist our joke,’ said Alistair Gunn.

  He had a broad leering grin on his turnip face. Hamish took out his handcuffs and handcuffed the two men together.

  ‘Start walking,’ he snapped.

  ‘Cannae ye take a joke?’ whined Dougie.

  ‘Shut up!’ said Hamish.

  The ghillies led the way down, not, to Hamish’s high irritation, by the difficult path he had scaled, but by a broad, easy, winding path down the back. He shoved both men into the police Land Rover and drove off, staring angrily through the windscreen. On the edge of Loch Cnothan was a small jetty. Hamish removed the handcuffs from the two men after he had stopped by the jetty. ‘Now walk to the end,’ he said, ‘and keep your backs to me. I don’t want to see your stupid faces when I talk to ye.’

  ‘Whit’ll happen to us?’ moaned Dougie to Alistair.

  ‘Naethin,’ said Alistair with a shrug. ‘The man’s a poofter. Cannae ye smell him?’

  This was said in a low voice, but Hamish heard it. It was all he needed. He waited until they were standing facing the water and then he kicked out with all his might, straight at Alistair’s broad backside. Alistair went flying into the icy water. ‘Dinnae touch me,’ screeched Dougie, turning around. ‘It wasnae me. It wass him!’ Hamish contemptuously pushed him in the chest and he went flying as well.

  Hamish stood with his hands on his hips until he was sure both were able to make it to the shore. Then he climbed in to the Land Rover and drove back to the police station. The snow was turning to rain and his wheels skidded on great piles of slush.

  When he reached the station, he changed out of his uniform and put on trousers and a flannel checked shirt. He pulled on his spare navy-blue police sweater over it, and then went over to Jenny’s cottage and knocked on the door. There was no reply.

  ‘Damn and blast!’ yelled Hamish.

  The door suddenly opened and Jenny Lovelace stood there, her hair dripping wet and with a large bath towel wrapped round her. ‘I was in the bath,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter? You look desperate.’

  Hamish shuffled his boots and a slow blush crept up his thin cheeks. His long lashes dropped quickly to veil his eyes.

  ‘Come in then,’ said Jenny when he did not speak. ‘I’ll p
ut some clothes on.’

  While she was getting ready, Hamish took a look at the pictures in the gallery. They were of the Sutherland countryside, but they were pretty – pretty, like the kind of pictures you used to see on old-fashioned calendars. They had not captured the wild, stark, highly individual beauty of Sutherland, and were strangely lifeless and dead. They were competently drawn and the draughtsmanship was excellent. He was examining a view of a path winding through graceful birch trees into a romantic sunset when Jenny came in.

  She was wearing faded jeans and a man’s checked shirt, much like his own. Her curls were damp and tousled and her feet bare. When she came to stand beside him, she barely reached his shoulder. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘Very good,’ said Hamish politely.

  ‘I do quite well with the tourists in the summer. Of course, I charge very low prices. I don’t need much. Come through to the kitchen and have some coffee.’

  Hamish loped after her. The kitchen was warm and cluttered. A primrose-yellow Raeburn cooker stood against the wall and the table was covered with paints and brushes.

  She poured him a cup of coffee and sat opposite him, clearing a space on the table in front of her by sweeping an assortment of stuff to the side with one small dimpled hand, like a child’s.

  She gave him a gamine grin. ‘You’re looking better now,’ she said. ‘I thought the Hound of Heaven was after you.’

  ‘It’s this place,’ said Hamish ruefully. ‘It’s getting me down.’ He told her about the witchcraft investigation, and then about the fake murder.

  ‘They do have a rather childish sense of fun,’ said Jenny defensively.

  ‘Now me myself,’ said Hamish, ‘I would call it pure and simple malice.’

  ‘Maybe it’s because you don’t understand the Highlander.’

  ‘I’m one myself.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ giggled Jenny. ‘Silly of me. You mustn’t listen to all this rubbish about poor Agatha Mainwaring. She’s one of those women who deliberately goads her husband into being nasty so that she can play the martyr.’

  ‘That’s one way o’ looking at it,’ said Hamish slowly.

  ‘Never mind the Mainwarings,’ said Jenny. ‘Tell me about yourself. Married?’

  ‘No. Are you?’

  ‘I was. In Canada. It didn’t work out. He was jealous of my painting. He was an artist himself. At my first exhibition in Montreal, he waited until one minute before the show opened and then told me he had always thought my work was too chocolate-box and I wasn’t to be disappointed if the critics panned it. I never forgave him.’

  Hamish looked at her curiously. ‘I would never have guessed ye to be one of those Never-Forgive sort of people. Every husband or wife usually says something crashingly tactless they wouldn’t dream of saying to a friend.’

  ‘But not about my painting,’ said Jenny fiercely. ‘I put my whole personality into my work. He was insulting me and everything I stood for. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Hamish soothingly, although one hazel eye slid to an oil painting on the kitchen wall. It was of a Highland cottage situated on a heathery hill: competent, colourful, and yet lifeless.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Jenny, ‘we’re talking about me and I meant to find out about you.’

  Hamish settled back and began to describe his life in Lochdubh and told several very tall and very Highland stories that set Jenny giggling.

  ‘And what about your love life?’ she suddenly asked.

  ‘Is there any more coffee?’ Hamish held out his cup.

  ‘Meaning you won’t talk about it.’ Jenny laughed. She went over to the Raeburn, where a glass coffee-pot had been placed to keep warm. Hamish eyed her appreciatively. She was everything Priscilla was not. Jenny was small and plumpish in all the right places, with that tousled hair. Priscilla was never tousled, always cool, slim, blonde, and efficient. Priscilla would never have a cluttered kitchen like this. And Priscilla would never spill hot coffee on her bare feet as Jenny had just done, for Priscilla never spilt anything and Priscilla would never go around on her bare feet. In fact, thought Hamish, feeling more cheerful than he had done in a long time, Priscilla is a pill.

  They chatted for some time until Hamish reluctantly said he’d better get back to the police station.

  ‘Come any time,’ said Jenny.

  ‘I will,’ said Hamish Macbeth. She held out her hand and he took it in his. The physical reaction of his own body amazed him. He looked down at her in surprise, holding her hand tightly.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Jenny, tugging her hand free.

  The snow had melted and great sheets of rain were whipping through the town, Hamish noticed in a bemused way. Towser watched him reproachfully as he entered. Hamish donned his waterproof cape and put the dog on the lead and went out to the shops.

  The butcher’s shop was a cheery, gossipy oasis in the desolation of Cnothan. The butcher, John Wilson, had heard all about the ducking of the ghillies and wanted the details firsthand. Hamish gossiped happily and came away with a bonus of two free lamb chops and a bag of bones for Towser.

  He went into the grocer’s next door and bought a bottle of wine, vaguely planning to ask Jenny to dinner as soon as possible. He then went into the hardware, which was farther up the street, to buy a corkscrew. He thought there might be one in the bar but did not want to poke around that horrible lounge of the MacGregors to look for it. ‘Get it yourself,’ said the owner of the shop. ‘It’s over there on the left.’ The accent was English but the manner was pure Cnothan. Hamish wondered if the outsiders became as rude as the locals in sheer self-defence.

  In the Clachan, Alistair Gunn and Dougie Macdonald were suffering the taunts of William Mainwaring. ‘So your joke backfired,’ jeered Mainwaring, ‘and the pair of you let that copper shove you in the loch.’

  ‘Weel, ye haff to go carefully when you’re dealing with a poofter,’ growled Alistair Gunn.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Mainwaring.

  ‘He means Macbeth,’ said Dougie in his high sing-song Highland whine. ‘The man is a fairy, a homosexual. You should have smelt him. He wass stinking of the perfume.’

  Mainwaring looked amazed. ‘Aye,’ said Alistair, enjoying startling the Englishman. ‘He’s wan o’ them. I can always tell.’

  Mainwaring suddenly burst out laughing and slapped Alistair on the back. ‘Well, old chap,’ he said, ‘it takes one to know one.’ And, still laughing, he went off.

  Alistair stood there stupidly, mulling over that ‘it takes one to know one’. Then a slow feeling of outrage started somewhere in the pit of his stomach and spread throughout his whole body.

  ‘I’ll kill that man,’ he howled.

  Later that evening, Mrs Struthers, the minister’s wife, was just finishing a lecture on microwave cooking to the Mothers’ Meeting in the church hall. The dishes she had prepared were proudly laid out on a table in front of her. William Mainwaring walked in, his eyes roving about the room, obviously looking for his wife. Mrs Struthers was glad Agatha had not put in an appearance and prayed that Mr Mainwaring would leave as soon as possible.

  ‘And that concludes my lecture,’ she said. ‘I now have some paper plates and knives and forks here and I would like you ladies to sample my cooking.’

  Her mouth gave a nervous twitch as Mainwaring approached the table. ‘What a strange selection,’ he said in a wondering voice. ‘What’s that cup of goo?’

  ‘It’s a sweet-and-sour sauce,’ said Mrs Struthers.

  ‘And what’s it made of?’

  ‘Pineapple juice and marmalade and a spoonful of vinegar.’

  ‘Yech!’ said Mainwaring. ‘And look at that baked potato. It doesn’t look cooked.’

  He seized a fork. Mrs Struthers made a sort of dismal bleating sound like a lamb lost on a dark hillside. She knew that potato hadn’t been in long enough, and she had been hoping to slide it away to the side.

  ‘Hard as hell,’ cried Mai
nwaring triumphantly. ‘Look, if you want to know about microwave cookery, it’s all very simple.’ He moved round the table and began a lecture. Woman eyed each other uneasily, and then, with that peculiar Highland talent for disappearing from an awkward situation, the audience gradually melted away.

  Mrs Struthers fought back tears as she looked at her cooking. There were some splendid dishes there. ‘I’d better be off, then,’ said Mainwaring, abruptly cutting short his lecture when he realized he was addressing an empty room.

  When the door had closed behind him, Mrs Struthers sat down and began to cry. She picked up a bottle of British sherry she had used for cooking and took a gulp from it. For the first time in her blameless life, she knew what it was to want to kill someone.

  Mainwaring returned to The Clachan. When he had finished tormenting someone, he immediately had to find another victim. His eyes fell on Harry Mackay, sitting over in a corner. He went to join him.

  ‘Business must be bad these days,’ said Mainwaring cheerfully.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ asked Harry Mackay sourly.

  ‘Just that no one seems to want property these days and you spend most of your time in here.’

  ‘Like yourself,’ said the estate agent nastily.

  ‘I wonder what your employers in Edinburgh would think if they knew exactly how little work you do,’ said Mainwaring.

  ‘You wouldn’t . . .’ gasped Harry Mackay.

  ‘I just might,’ laughed Mainwaring. ‘You know me.’

  ‘Oh, I know you, all right,’ said the estate agent bitterly. ‘We all know you.’

  William Mainwaring at last returned home to see if he could rile his wife to round off the evening. She always claimed she never drank. He searched and searched for the empty bottle but could not find it because Agatha had buried it in the garden. It had been a whole bottle of the cheapest wine possible, called Dream of the Highlands, made by a local winery. She could not risk anything more expensive out of the housekeeping money. She had claimed Hamish had drunk a lot of whisky to explain the low level in the decanter earlier in the day, but there had been no further callers she could use as an excuse and so she had been driven to buy the bottle of cheap wine.