Death of a Gentle Lady hm-24

by M C Beaton

  He heard bolts being drawn back, and then, pretending to be asleep and looking under his eyelashes, he saw a tray being pushed through the hatch. The hatch went down. He heard bolts being rammed back into place.

  Hamish got slowly up again and went over and examined the tray. It contained a pot of tea, milk and sugar, and two large ham sandwiches.

  He gratefully drank the tea but still felt too nauseated to eat anything. He examined the room’s tiny window, looking for a way to escape, but it was sealed shut.

  He still felt dizzy and sick. He decided to sleep the night and see what he could do about escaping in the morning.

  ♦

  Hamish awoke at seven in the morning. He heard a car arriving, a car door slam, and then the front door of the cottage being unlocked.

  Sounds of plates and pans in the kitchen and the sounds of cooking. He put his plate with the uneaten sandwiches on the ledge in front of the hatch. If his captor planned to give him breakfast, then he could grab whoever it was through the hatch. But he didn’t know how many people were responsible for his kidnapping. Better to wait and see if they or he or she left the cottage and then try to escape.

  Again the double doors of the hatch opened. He could see a head covered in a black balaclava. His old tray disappeared, and another was pushed through.

  He found he was hungry. There were two bacon baps and a pot of tea. He ate and drank and waited.

  The room was cold, so he wrapped himself in the filthy blankets from the bed.

  He waited and waited while the late winter sun rose and shone in through the window. Then he heard the front door slam and a little after, the sound of a car driving off.

  He walked over and examined the double doors of the hatch. He needed something to force those doors and break the bolts.

  Hamish looked down at the tray. It was made of heavy metal, the kind used in hotels and restaurants.

  He carefully removed everything off it. He went over to the hatch and rammed the tray at the doors. They gave slightly. He went on using the heavy tray as a battering ram, time after time, pausing only to rest because he still felt weak.

  Finally frightened and furious, he struck at the hatch doors with all his might. They crashed open.

  Panting, he waited a moment. Then, glad he was slim, he heaved himself through the open space and tumbled onto the floor on the other side.

  It was the same bare room he had seen when he had arrived, but it had been augmented by a camping stove and a small television set.

  The front door was, of course, locked. He wondered if the woman had been working alone and if she had put his clothes anywhere. He went into a small bedroom. There was an old wardrobe and an unmade bed. He opened the wardrobe and saw his uniform and boots lying at the bottom. He hurriedly dressed, listening all the while for the car returning. His belt with his police radio and all his other equipment was there. He strapped it on. In his pocket, he found his mobile phone and called Jimmy.

  Quickly, he told Jimmy where he was.

  “Found Macbeth!” Jimmy shouted to the detectives’ room. “Come on, Andy, and get a couple of coppers. We’d better get to him fast.”

  Blair sat as if turned to stone. Then he suddenly seemed to recover from his shock. He rushed outside to the car park, got into his car, and phoned Ruby.

  “You let the bastard get away,” howled Blair. “Don’t go back there. Did you use gloves?”

  “The whole time,” wailed Ruby. “What’ll I do?”

  “Just go home. I’ll call on you later.”

  ♦

  Hamish heard the welcome sound of sirens. Then he heard the battering ram striking the front door; after a few blows, it crashed open.

  “Are you all right?” asked Jimmy.

  “I was knocked unconscious. I’m a wee bit shaky.”

  “We’ll take you to the hospital. I’ll get this place dusted for prints. Any idea who the hell is behind this?”

  “Not a clue,” said Hamish. “It was a woman who answered the door to me. I couldn’t get a good look at her.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

  “I think you should get the other police cars away somewhere and come back on foot,” said Hamish. “If we wait here, we’ll catch her – or them.”

  ♦

  The owner of the cottage was tracked down. He said a woman had paid him cash for a three-month rent and had left a month’s deposit. He had rented it cheap because the place was in such a mess; he’d planned to get the house demolished and then sell the ground as a building plot.

  Asked where the contract was, he said the woman had told him they needn’t bother, and he was too glad of the money to insist.

  ♦

  Blair sweated it out, terrified all the time that the search would lead to Ruby. They had footprints but no fingerprints, and footprints weren’t on file.

  He wasn’t too nervous about them finding any DNA, because the forensic lab was one of the most inefficient in Scotland. They were backed up with requests for DNA anyway, and most of the results were taking over a year to arrive.

  ♦

  Hamish and Jimmy waited all that day and far into the night, but no one came. “Maybe whoever it is passed the police cars on the road and decided not to go back,” said Jimmy.

  He drove Hamish back to the hospital in Strathbane. Hamish was examined and given painkillers. “We’ll need to take that Land Rover of yours away and give it to forensic,” said Jimmy as they left the hospital.

  “What’ll I do for transport?”

  “I’ll try to get someone over with an unmarked police car. Who on earth do you think was behind this? Someone associated with Cyril?”

  “No, if it had been someone associated with Cyril, I feel I might be dead now. It was all very amateur. I feel in my bones that the woman was the only one in the cottage.”

  ♦

  Blair was beginning to feel very uneasy. Daviot was raging about a police officer being kidnapped. The forensic team had been sent back to the cottage to go over it again.

  In the evening, he made his way to Ruby’s flat by a circuitous route. “This is a mess!” shrieked Ruby. “It was on the telly. If they get me, they’ll lock me up and throw away the key. If they get me I’ll have tae say it was you.”

  “It won’t come to that,” said Blair soothingly. “I want you to write something and then it’ll be all over.”

  ♦

  Daviot called Blair into his office the following day. “There’s been a development,” he said. “This letter, addressed to me, was handed in by a small boy. He said a woman gave him a pound to deliver it. Unfortunately, his description of her could apply to every woman in Strathbane.”

  Blair read the letter out loud, just as if he did not already know every word of it.

  “Dear policemen,” he read. “I’m sorry about Macbeth but he led me to believe he would marry me and then he cheated on me. I won’t do nothing like that again. A Friend.”

  “Dearie me,” said Blair. “Our Hamish has been at it again. He’s a devil with the women.”

  “I did hear something to that effect.” The one time Hamish had ridden high in the superintendent’s esteem was when he had been engaged to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, for Daviot was a snob. He was furious and amazed when Hamish broke off the engagement. Then there was this unsavoury business of Macbeth trying to marry a hooker.

  “I think we should keep this quiet,” said Daviot. “If it got out, it would be a slur on the whole force. Also, the gangs are joining up with the neo-Nazis to attack immigrants. That should be our first priority. Tell Anderson and the others that we can no longer spare any time on Hamish’s kidnap.”

  “We’ve put a policeman on guard outside Macbeth’s station.”

  “Call him off now!”

  ♦

  Hamish was about to take a cup of tea out to PC Logan on guard outside when the man met him at the kitchen door.

  “I’ve been called off,” he said. “They�
��re standing down the investigations.”

  “Why?”

  “Trouble with the gangs.”

  After he had gone, Hamish sat down to think. But he could feel a migraine coming on, a result of the blow to his head. He quickly swallowed two migraine pills and went to lie down in his darkened bedroom.

  He fell asleep at last and woke later, feeling better. His dog and cat now followed him everywhere. He turned his mind again to the problem as to why the investigation into his kidnapping had been abruptly ended. He left a message on Jimmy’s mobile phone, begging for information.

  Jimmy phoned back an hour later. “I don’t know what happened, Hamish. One minute it was all systems go on your case, and the next we were being told to stand down. Blair knows something. All I could find out was that a letter to Daviot was delivered this morning. Blair was summoned, and after that everything to do with you stopped. I’ve looked for that letter but there’s not a sign of it, and no report has been written.”

  “Whoever it was didn’t seem to want to kill me, just keep me prisoner,” said Hamish. “What would have happened if I’d been kept there several months, say?”

  “If you’d ever got out of it, you’d have probably found they’d have closed up your station.”

  “Blair!” said Hamish suddenly. “I bet he’s behind this.”

  “Come on, Hamish. That’s going a bit too far.”

  “Does Blair know any woman, sort of thickset?”

  “Women run at the sight of Blair. The only people he knows are the prostitutes he used to nick when he was on the beat.”

  “Like who?”

  “I was leaving headquarters with him and he stopped to speak to one being brought in by Aileen Drummond.”

  “Do me a favour and get her name and address.”

  ♦

  Hamish drove down to Ruby’s flat in the docks. It was raining hard. He climbed up the stairs, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He hoped she had decided not to go out on her beat in such a filthy night. Maybe she didn’t have to. If Blair was behind this, he thought, then he would have had to pay her and pay her well.

  He knocked on her door. A cautious voice from the other side asked, “Who is it?”

  “Blair,” said Hamish.

  The door swung open. Ruby let out a gasp as she recognised Hamish and tried to shut the door but he jammed his foot in it, wrenched it open, and forced her back into the room.

  Ruby went and sat down on a sofa. She lit a cigarette with trembling fingers while Hamish locked the door and came to stand over her.

  “How did you ken?” she asked.

  Hamish pulled up a chair and sat opposite her. “Why did you let Blair put you up to this?” he asked.

  “He asked me tae do it,” said Ruby. “You cannae refuse a polis.”

  She crushed out the cigarette and began to cry. Hamish watched her heaving figure unsympathetically. He did not believe in tarts with hearts, and his recent experience with Irena had really soured him.

  “I don’t want to go to p-prison,” wailed Ruby.

  Hamish saw a box of paper tissues on the sideboard and took it over to her. “Pull yourself together,” he said.

  Ruby gulped, shuddered, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. “Can I have a wee dram afore you take me in?”

  Hamish went back to the sideboard where there was a row of bottles. Blair must have been generous, he thought cynically, because Ruby can’t be making much on the streets these days.

  Ruby asked for a rum and Coke. Hamish poured her a reasonable measure and took it back to her.

  She gulped it down. He saw the fear in her eyes and felt a reluctant twinge of pity.

  “How did you get into the life, Ruby?”

  “I wisnae always like this,” said Ruby. “Ruby McFee is no’ my real name. I was born Mary Ashford and I was a nice child. This was down in Glesca. My dad died and my mother married again. When I was fourteen my stepdad took me round to his brother, Shuggie Leith, saying I had to stay with him for a bit. The brother raped me, his pals raped me, and then they put me on the streets. One o’ my punters fell for me, a nice wee man called Sandy McFee who worked on the Clyde ferries. I ran away with him and we lived in a wee flat in Gourock. We werenae married but I took his name. He called me his ruby and so I became known as Ruby McFee.

  “I came back from the shopping one day and he was lying at the foot o’ the stairs leading up to our flat wi’ his throat cut. I didnae call the polis. I was that frightened. I thought they’d think it was me what done it and find out about the hooking.

  “I packed up my stuff and came up here. I don’t know if Shuggie and his pals killed Sandy but I never wanted him to find me again. Somehow I just drifted back into the life again.”

  Hamish sat staring at her. Here was his perfect opportunity to get his revenge on Blair. Blair as well as Ruby would go to prison. But Daviot, he knew, would blame him for bringing the force into disgrace. Somehow, Hamish would share that disgrace, and a vengeful Daviot might move him to Strathbane.

  Ruby eyed him nervously, finished her drink, and mutely held out her glass for more. Hamish went to the sideboard and refilled it, his brain racing.

  He handed her the glass and sat down and looked at her.

  “How would you like to be a respectable married woman?” he asked.

  “Stop making fun o’ me.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “That was always a dream I had when I was out in the streets, particularly in the winter.”

  “Does Blair know your real name?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Were you ever charged under your real name?”

  “No. When I was hooking in Glesca I was that young, somehow the polis never picked me up.”

  “Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to write and sign a confession. Then I want you to go out tomorrow and get yourself some lady-like clothes and dye your hair a respectable brown. Then I want you to phone Blair and tell him he’s got to marry you or you’ll tell all. Don’t mention my name. I’ll keep your confession as security. You’ll tell him that you’ve written a confession and you’ve lodged it with a lawyer with instructions it’s to go straight to the police if anything should happen to you. Tell him about your real name and that no one will associate you with Ruby McFee.”

  “He’ll kill me!”

  “He can’t. He wouldn’t dare. You’ll never have to walk the streets again.”

  ∨ Death of a Gentle Lady ∧

  Epilogue

  A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

  —Oscar Wilde

  Christmas was over, the New Year’s celebrations were over, and a fine drizzle of snow was falling: tiny little flakes that spiralled upwards in the freezing air.

  Hamish was coming back down to the station from the field at the back after giving his sheep their winter feed when he saw Jimmy standing on the doorstep.

  “Let me in out o’ this cold, Hamish,” said Jimmy. “You’ll never believe what I have to tell you!”

  They walked into the kitchen. Hamish took down the bottle of whisky and warned, “One dram only, Jimmy. The roads are bad. You could’ve phoned.”

  “Not wi’ news like this. Brace yourself, Bridget, as the Irishman said to his missus by way of foreplay.”

  They sat down at the table. Jimmy took a sip of whisky and said, “Blair’s getting married!”

  “Michty me!” exclaimed Hamish, affecting surprise. “Who to?”

  “Decent enough body called Mary Ashford. Bit of an eccentric, mind you. I knew she was going to be at the Rotary Club dinner so I wangled an invitation from my pal and took Aileen Drummond along – you know, the PC you promised to take to dinner and never did? Anyway, there’s the happy couple on either side of Daviot. Well, the first course was artichoke and Mary begins to eat the whole thing. Then she cries, “Bugger this stuff. It’s like trying to eat holly!” Mrs. Daviot on the other side of Blair looks shocked. She says, “You’re not supp
osed to eat the whole thing, Mary. Just the bottoms of the leaves.” Blair rounds on her and hisses, “Stop showing me up.” Mrs. Daviot springs to Mary’s defence. “Really,” she says, “Mary’s not the only one who doesn’t know how to eat it.” And sure enough, some of Strathbane’s finest are trying to chomp down the whole thing as well.

  “There you are, darlin’,” says Mary, blowing Blair a kiss, and he looks as if he could murder her.”

  “Where did he meet her?” asked Hamish, relishing every moment of the account.

  “She was working in one of the supermarkets and even doing volunteer work in one of the charity shops at the weekend. Mrs. Daviot was most impressed. She’s organising the wedding for them.”

  “And when is it to be?”

  “February the second at St. Andrew’s kirk in Strathbane. Blair wanted a registry office wedding but Mrs. Daviot wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Any chance of an invite?”

  “I’ll see if I can wangle one for you. Now I’m off before the snow gets worse.”

  ♦

  Hamish received an invitation to the wedding. Along with the invitation came details of the wedding present list and the Web site details of a shop in Strathbane. He got onto the site and ordered a soup tureen out of a dinner service list, putting in his credit card details and instructions for it to be sent off with the message, “Oh, Happy Day, from your friend and colleague, Hamish Macbeth.”

  ♦

  At last the great day arrived. Hamish put on his only suit and travelled to Strathbane.

  It was a day full of blustery wind and yellow glaring sunlight. The church was full. Hamish chatted to people he knew and then found himself accosted by Aileen Drummond. “What about dinner?” she asked.

  “All right. Come over to the station tomorrow evening at seven o’ clock. Do you want me to pick you up?”

  “No, I’ll drive over.” She gave him a saucy look. “If I drink too much I can stay the night.”

  And why not? thought Hamish as he settled into a pew. The hell with romanticism. What I need is some healthy sex.