Death of a Chimney Sweep hm-1

by M C Beaton

  Edie’s bony shoulders rose in a dismal little shrug. “I’ve been a right fool. You remember, Hamish, when we had that murder here? Before that, I ran the exercise classes. It was all such fun and excitement. I was out for a walk one day and saw the captain up ahead of me. I thought I’d take him to task for not shopping at the village store. Thae supermarkets are killing off all the wee shops. It’s a disgrace, that’s what it is!”

  “Yes, yes,” said Hamish soothingly. “And then what happened?”

  “He wasn’t what I expected. He was awfy kind and polite. He said he would start to buy groceries at the shop. He said it must be a lonely life for a sophisticated lady like me. I found myself telling him about missing all the excitement I’d had when I ran the classes. Oh, he said, you should start an exercise salon in Strathbane. I said I hadn’t the money. He said that he’d a friend in Strathbane who would back me if I put a small down payment but it’d need to be in cash.

  “I asked him how much and he said, one thousand pounds. Well, I just had that much and not much over in my post office savings account, but after we’d talked for a long time and I could practically smell that salon, I said all right. I’d call at his house with it. And I did. He told that wee wife of his to take a walk and leave us alone. He said to me that Milly was a bit of a fool and didn’t understand business. I still hung on to the money in my bag, I was that nervous with the idea of parting with it. But, och, he gave me a couple of drinks and I’ve aye had a weak head and he fed my dreams. I gave him the money.

  “After that, I called at the house a couple o’ times but the wife always said he wasn’t at home and she always looked as if she’d been crying. I watched and waited one day until I saw him marching off for one of his walks. I followed him. He denied the whole thing. I said I’d go to the police. He smiled and said, ‘What proof do you have? You’ll just look like some old senile fool.’ ”

  “Did you tell Jock?” Hamish asked Ailsa.

  She shook her head. “Edie swore me to secrecy.”

  Thank goodness for that, reflected Hamish. If word had got around what had happened to Edie, then he would have to suspect the village men, who would have banded together behind Jock to teach the captain a lesson.

  “Will you be taking me in?” asked Edie. Tears were running down her thin face. Her mascara ran in black streaks.

  “I’ll keep it quiet for now,” said Hamish. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  When he left, he looked down to the beach. Lugs and Sonsie were chasing each other around and seemed to be having a good time. He walked on up to Milly’s house.

  She led him into the kitchen, where he found Tam Tamworth ensconced by the stove. “Get lost, Tam,” ordered Hamish. “This is private business.”

  “Anything that concerns Milly concerns me,” said Tam.

  “Please, Tam,” said Milly. “I must hear what he has to say.”

  He closed the kitchen door behind him. Hamish waited a moment and then jerked the door back open. Tam nearly fell in. “Out!” ordered Hamish. “As far away as you can go.”

  Tam gave a sheepish smile and walked to the front door. Hamish waited until he heard the door slam behind him and returned to Milly.

  He told her about Edie Aubrey. “But that’s awful,” said Milly. “I’ll give you a cheque for her. I’ve already sent a cheque to Angela Brodie.”

  “I’m afraid there might be others. How are you situated financially?”

  “I thought I had enough to keep me going for a bit and then I’ve got Henry’s army pension and my widow’s pension. But if those four colleagues of Henry’s are telling the truth, then I will need to sell this house.

  “Oddly enough, ever since Henry’s death, I’ve begun to like this place. The women are so friendly.”

  “I wouldn’t pay any more until the murder is solved. I mean, I don’t trust those men. Any one of them or all of them could be claiming inflated amounts of money. What’s Tam doing hanging around?”

  “Oh, he’s been so kind.”

  “I’m warning you, a reporter will be kind to anyone to get a story.”

  “Tam’s not like that. He’s promised to only write up any background I gave him after the murder is solved.”

  “Get it in writing,” said Hamish cynically.

  “I’ll get you that cheque,” said Milly in a thin little voice. She obviously did not like any criticism of Tam.

  When she returned with the cheque, Hamish left and found Tam moodily kicking at a clod of earth in the garden.

  “Don’t you go messing up that poor woman,” cautioned Hamish.

  “It’s not like that,” said Tam. He turned dark red and gave the clod another kick. “Fact is, I’ve got it bad. I want tae marry the lass.”

  Hamish stared at him in amazement. They were in the lee of the house so he had heard clearly what Tam had said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “She’s such a lady wi’ her gentle ways, and I’ve a mind to settle down.”

  “She doesn’t have much money.”

  Hamish sidestepped quickly as Tam took a swipe at him. “I love her, you useless loon!”

  “All right, all right,” said Hamish, backing off. “Invite me to the wedding.”

  As Hamish walked back down towards the village, he turned and looked back. The bushes had all been cleared, and only the monkey puzzle tree remained. It meant that Milly would have a clear view of anyone approaching the house.

  He gave a tearful and delighted Edie her cheque and then headed to the beach. Sonsie and Lugs were now sheltering beside the Land Rover. He noticed that the sea loch’s tide was very high—higher than he could ever remember it.

  He had an uneasy feeling that the seas were coming back to claim the land they had lost.

  Chapter Six

  The shadows now so long do grow,

  That brambles like tall cedars grow,

  Molehills seem mountains, and the ant

  Appears a monstrous elephant

  —Charles Cotton

  Betty Close did not lose her job because when it came to grovelling, she could out-grovel Detective Inspector Blair. Instead, she was suspended for a month.

  She decided to use her time off following up the death of the Edinburgh prostitute instead of moping in her flat in Glasgow. She got off at Waverley Station and made her way up the Mound to the Royal Mile.

  People have been living in the Royal Mile for the last seven thousand years. It runs from the Castle to Holyrood Palace down the shoulder of a former volcano. Betty’s grandmother had told her that when she was a child, she remembered the tall tenements on the Royal Mile containing some really dreadful slums. But restoration and cachet had turned the famous street into somewhere desirable to live.

  Betty found the actual address, which she had discovered by trawling through back numbers of the Edinburgh papers. The death of Sarah Brogan had only qualified for a small paragraph in the Scotsman. The procurator fiscal had refused to pass a verdict of suicide, and it said the police were still investigating.

  The tenement was up a close off the Canongate, a close being the narrow passage that led to the flats. She had brought with her still photographs of the four men. Betty started at the top flat where Sarah had lived. There was no police tape on the door. She pressed the bell, but nobody answered. There was no answer at the flat across the landing, either.

  Betty tried a flat on the next floor down. The whole building seemed expensive and well maintained. She reflected that the late Sarah must have been very good at her job. This time someone did answer the door, a small thickset man with a balding head and small black eyes.

  Betty showed him the photographs and asked if he recognised any of the men. She explained that she was investigating Sarah’s death for a television documentary. He put on a pair of glasses and carefully studied the photographs.

  “No, I can’t say I recognise anyone,” he said at last. He had a voice which the Scots would describe as “refeened,” rather strangul
ated as he tried to imitate a “posh” English accent.

  “Can you think of anyone who lives here who might have known her?” asked Betty.

  He shook his head. “We keep ourselves to ourselves. The other residents are practically all out during the day. I’d suggest you come back sometime after six o’clock. It’s a good thing the fire brigade were quick off the mark or I’d have lost my flat as well.”

  She found that what he had said about the other residents being out during the day was true. She pressed bell after bell on her road down without success. She tried a few of the neighbouring shops and a coffee shop, still failing to find anyone who had known Sarah.

  Betty passed the time by going down to Princes Street and looking at the shops. A true Glaswegian, she felt out of place in Edinburgh and found herself longing to get the train back to Glasgow. But just before six o’clock, she wearily trekked back to the Canongate and entered the close leading to the tenement. The aristocracy, she remembered, used to live in the Royal Mile but had deserted it in the eighteenth century to move to the New Town behind Princes Street. It was still daylight outside but the close was dark and the lamps had not been lit, no doubt as one of the new measures to leave lights off as long as possible to save energy.

  There was a dark alcove in the close. Just as she was passing it, she received a smashing blow on the skull. She died instantly and did not feel the hands that shoved her small inert body into a large suitcase on wheels.

  Betty had been an orphan and a menopause baby. She had no brothers or sisters, and the only relation she had known had been her mother’s sister who died the year before of cancer. And because she had been suspended for a month, no one noticed she was missing.

  Her body in the suitcase loaded down with stones eventually lay at the bottom of a quiet stretch of the Gareloch in Argyll after being tipped over the side of a rowing boat.

  Back in Lochdubh, Hamish was relieved to find that the four men had left, so there was no fear of Milly being bullied further. But now he had the weight of worry that the murderer might be one of the locals. He diligently went all over the area where the captain might have walked, talking to crofters, and then to every house in Drim but without any success.

  Just to be sure, he checked up on Edie Aubrey. On the day of the captain’s death, she had been seen with Ailsa. There was no indication that she had gone near the captain’s home.

  He wondered, as spring eased into a glorious early summer and bell heather began to bloom on the flanks of the towering mountains, whether this would be a case he would ever solve. He itched to go down to Guildford. He had holiday owing but felt reluctant to use up his dwindling bank balance on what could be a wild goose chase prompted by his desire to find a murderer outside of his beloved Sutherland.

  One fine morning, he wandered out onto the waterfront and leaned on the wall overlooking the loch. The air was clean and fresh, scented with pine from the forest across the loch and with the more homely smells of frying bacon and baking scones. Angela Brodie came hurrying to join him.

  “Hamish, I’ve just been correcting the proofs of my new book.”

  “So that Edinburgh publisher’s turned out all right?”

  “Oh, he’s great. I’m going down to Edinburgh to have lunch with him tomorrow. How’s the case going?”

  “I cannae get anywhere, Angela, and that iss a fact,” said Hamish, the strengthening of his accent showing that he was upset. “I fear it’s going to turn out to be one of the locals. You weren’t the only one.”

  “Who…?”

  “I cannae be saying. I feel like taking time off and going down to Guildford but I’m a bittie stretched at the bank.”

  “Milly gave me back that money, so I could give you some.”

  “No, I couldn’t be taking it. I want to be able to enjoy a grand day like this without the shadow of those damn murders hanging over the place. Who else goes for long walks?”

  “Not many of us. You know what it’s like in the country. Some of them at the end of the waterfront even drive their cars along to Patel’s. Oh, I know. I’ve thought of someone. Do you remember Effie Garrard?”

  “Of course. The one that was murdered and pretended to be an artist when it turned out to be her sister’s work.”

  “Well, the sister, Caro, spent some of the winter down in Brighton but she’s back. She’s had that awful corrugated iron roof taken off and a good slate one put on instead. I heard she likes to go for long walks.”

  “I’ll try her.” Hamish sighed. “I’m at a dead end anyway. Tell me, Angela, I never asked. You’re no fool. What was there about the captain that made you believe him?”

  “I suppose he had the professional fraudster’s gift of finding out people’s dreams and playing on them. I felt hurt, rejected by my old publisher. He was so easy to talk to. I hear how he treated his poor wife like dirt but he made you feel you were the most important person in the world.”

  Hamish was once more amazed that Caro Garrard had decided to keep the cottage in the Highlands which had once belonged to her murdered sister.* The new slate roof gleamed in the sunlight, and the walls had been newly whitewashed.

  The door was standing open. “Anyone home?” he called.

  Caro came to the door. She was a small housewifey-looking woman. No one could have guessed by just looking at her that her exquisite pottery sold for large sums, as did her small paintings of birds and flowers.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “A wee chat.”

  Caro suddenly grinned. “How nice to be in the Highlands where a policeman asks for a wee chat instead of saying severely, We want you to accompany us down to the station. Come in.”

  Hamish walked into the living-room-cum-kitchen. It was strange, he thought, that Caro could produce her miracles in such a cramped environment, and then realised there wasn’t a potter’s wheel, easel, paints, or brushes. As if reading his thoughts, Caro said, “I’ve got a big shed out the back now where I work. Coffee?”

  “Yes, that would be grand.”

  “It’s ready. I was just about to take a cup myself.”

  Hamish took off his cap and settled himself at a table by the window. Outside, he could see Lugs and Sonsie playing in the heather.

  Caro put down a mug of coffee in front of him and looked out of the window as well. “Aren’t you frightened that one day that cat is going to revert to the wild and savage your dog?”

  “No. It’s odd, I know, but they’re great friends.”

  She sat down opposite him. “So what brings you?”

  “Captain Henry Davenport.”

  “Oh, him.”

  “Yes, him. Did he con any money out of you?”

  There was a long silence.

  Then she said with a weary note in her voice. “I may as well tell you. Knowing you of old, I’ve a nasty feeling if I don’t, you’ll dig and dig until you get at the truth.”

  “What happened?”

  “I arrived back here shortly before he was murdered. It was one of those rare warm days with a breeze blowing all the way in from the Gulf Stream. I like walking. I love the clean air up here. I also wanted to work off my fury. A gallery in Mayfair had promised to hold an exhibition of my paintings. They cancelled at the last minute. They wanted instead to use my space for an exhibition by a sort of Turner Prize artist—you know the type of thing, painting made from elephant dung and an unmade bed. It was like a slap in the face. They said my little paintings were too ‘pretty-pretty’ for their clients. I was up in the hills where you can look down on Drim and that sinister sea loch when I saw this tweedy sort of military man approaching.

  “He stopped and said, ‘You’ve been crying. What’s the matter?’ And he had an English accent.”

  “Did that make a difference? We don’t go in for English bashing up here.”

  “I know. But you highlanders run on a different wavelength. It’s my own fault. I’m a solitary person. I like my own company.
But I suddenly desperately needed someone to talk to. He had a soothing voice. He said he had recently moved to Drim and wondered if he had made a mistake. He said the locals were a bit weird and he always felt he was somehow on the outside looking in. I began to tell him about the gallery rejecting my work. He was so sympathetic that a lot of the pain began to ease. Then to my amazement, he said he knew the owner of the Collin Gallery in Mayfair and he could get me an exhibition but it would take a bit of bribery. He winked at me and I began to laugh. I was feeling so relieved at being able to unburden myself.

  “ ‘How much?’ I asked.

  “ ‘If I could slip him a couple of thousand cash, the deed’s done,’ he said. He introduced himself and handed me his card. It said, CAPTAIN HENRY DAVENPORT, FINANCIAL ADVISOR, and an address in Guildford. He said he still had a house down there and Drim was really just a holiday home. Now, I keep a few thousand here, or rather I did, for expenses. Everyone wants to be paid off the books these days. Also I earn an awful lot of money from my pottery so two thousand doesn’t mean much to me. I took him back to the house.”

  “Oh, dearie, dearie me,” said Hamish. “Where did you keep it?”

  She pointed to a row of white and blue enamel tins on the dresser. “In the one marked FLOUR. So I got out the money and paid him. He took a note of my phone number and said he’d be in touch but to give him a week.

  “Now, when I was out of his orbit, so to speak, I couldn’t believe I had been so silly as to trust a complete stranger like that but I decided to give it a chance. About five days later, I decided to take out some money and go shopping down in Inverness for some more art supplies. I found all the money in the flour tin was gone.”

  “How much?”

  “About five thousand.”

  “Was the door forced?”

  “No, but I didn’t used to lock it. I do now. I was sure it couldn’t have been one of the workmen. How mad! I was always so careful with them, the innocents! I would never let them know there was money in the house. I would always say, ‘Come back tomorrow after I’ve been to the bank and I’ll pay you.’ So I headed for Drim.”