by M C Beaton
“Aye,” said Geordie. “Down at the hotel, The Highland Comfort, next tae the jetty.”
The village of Skulag was a small cluster of low houses standing end-on to the sea, some of them thatched in the old manner with heather. There was no one to be seen as they rattled down the cobbled main street. Hamish parked neatly in front of the hotel, which was on a small rise above the jetty. It was a two-storeyed white-washed building, originally built in the Victorian era as a holiday home for some misguided Glasgow merchant who had survived only one holiday summer before putting the place up for sale. It had been an hotel ever since.
Inside, apart from a hutch of a reception desk, the rooms leading off the hall still bore their Victorian legends of ‘Drawing-Room’, ‘Smoking-Room’, and ‘Billiard Room’.
Hamish, who had been in such hotels before, opened the door marked ‘Drawing-Room’ and there, sure enough, was the bar along one wall. Along the other wall was a line of glass-and-steel windows overlooking the jetty.
“What are you having?” asked Hamish. “I’d sit at a table over at the window, Harriet. I doubt if the natives are friendly.” He nodded towards the line of small men in caps who were propping up the bar. They looked back at him with sullen hostility.
“A whisky and water,” said Harriet.
Hamish ordered two whiskies and water and then carried mem over to a table at the window.
“There’s that poor mad truck-driver,” said Harriet.
Hamish looked out. The truck was where he’d left it, parked on the rise. A little below, at the entrance to the jetty, stood Geordie, leaning forward against the force of the wind and trying to light a cigarette.
And then, in front of Hamish’s horrified eyes, the truck began to creep forward and Geordie was standing in a direct line of its approach.
Hamish struggled with the rusty catch of the window and swung it open. “Geordie!” he yelled desperately. “Look out!”
Geordie looked up, startled. The truck stopped dead.
“Wait a minute,” said Hamish to Harriet. He ran outside the hotel and straight up to Geordie. “You’d ‘better have the brakes on that truck of yours checked,” he shouted against the screaming of the wind.
Geordie shrugged. “What’s the point? Anyway, himself stopped when he heard you.”
Hamish went back to the truck and climbed inside the cabin. The keys were still in the ignition. He switched on the engine and put his foot gently on the accelerator. Nothing happened. The brakes held firm.
He switched off the engine and got down and walked to the front of the truck. There was no explanation why the thing had suddenly stopped. It was parked on a slope, it had started moving, and it had stopped when he called.
He shrugged and went back into the bar to join Harriet.
“Odd,” he said. “Did you see that?”
“He should get it checked,” said Harriet. “A good mechanic would sort the trouble out in no time.”
The men at the bar were staring at both of them and talking rapidly in Gaelic. “What are they saying?” asked Harriet.
“My Gaelic’s a bit rusty,” said Hamish, “but they are saying, I gather, some pretty nasty things about Jane. That wee man there with the black hair is saying she should be driven off the island and the other one is saying someone should kill the bitch.”
“How awful! Why are they so nasty about her? Jane’s harmless.”
“I think it’s just because they are nasty people,” said Hamish. He shouted something in Gaelic in a sharp voice and the men relapsed into sulky silence.
The door to the bar opened and a large policeman lumbered in. He had a huge round fiery-red face and small watery eyes. Those eyes rested briefly on Hamish and then sharpened. He marched up to their table.
“Whit are you doing here?” Harriet looked from Hamish to the policeman in surprise.
“Holiday, Sandy,” said Hamish briefly.
“At The Happy Wanderer?”
Hamish nodded.
“You need to pit on weight, man, no’ lose it.” Sandy looked cynically down at Hamish’s thin and lanky form. “Wait a minute. The place is closed. She’s got her friends there.”
“One of which is me,” said Hamish equably.
“You’re up tae something.” Sandy looked mulish. “And if I find you’re poaching on my territory, I’ll phone Strathbane and have ye sent home.”
“Do that.” Hamish gazed up at him blandly.
Sandy muttered something, turned and threw a longing look at the bar, and then slouched out.
“What was all that about?” asked Harriet. “Have you a criminal record?”
Hamish shook his head. “I’ll tell you the truth if you promise to keep it to yourself. I am the local copper in a village called Lochdubh on the west coast of Sutherland. Jane asked me to come because she was afraid someone was trying to kill her.”
“Oh, the bathroom heater. But that was an accident. But of course I won’t tell anyone who you are.”
“Jane herself thought it an accident but she went to a Mrs. Bannerman in this village and got her fortune told. This Mrs. Bannennan told her that someone from far away was trying to kill her. Jane had also just missed being hit by a falling rock. She was worried it might be one of you. I plan to see Mrs. Bannerman this morning. Would you like to come along?”
Harriet grinned. “Lead on, Sherlock. This is all very exciting.”
“Now that you know the truth about me,” said Hamish, “tell me what you think of the other guests. Let’s start with the horrible Heather.”
“I’ve met types like Heather on visits to Glasgow,” said Harriet. “She seems to spend an awful lot on entertaining any visiting celebrity she can, running a sort of Glaswegian salon. She’s a fairly rich, old-fashioned Communist, looking for another totalitarian regime to worship now that Stalinism has been finally discredited. Says she was brought up in the Gorbals when it was a really horrible slum and tells very colourful stories and I am not sure I believe any of them. Quotes Sartre in very bad French. Refers to celebrities by their first names, Rudi being Rudolph Nureyev, things like that. Adores Jane and is jealous of her at the same time. Jane has no political affiliations that I know of, but she hails from an old county family, and that’s enough for a snob like Heather. Jane’s maiden name is Bellingham. Her pa owns a minor stately home in Wiltshire and Heather keeps hinting she’d like an invitation. Heather is the kind who hangs around the private section of stately homes on view to the public in the hope that one of the family will emerge and recognise one of their own kind.”
“I don’t get it,” said Hamish. “And her a Communist!”
“When it comes to social climbing, such as Heather never lets politics get in the way, hence her friendship with Jane. Hates romance writers. There’s still plenty of first-class romance writers around, but she reserves her venom for what used to be called novelettes, you know, the laird and the country girl, or the advertising exec and the secretary. It’s still the laird and the country girl or whatever, but with lashings of sex thrown in. Nothing too vulgar. Lots of euphemisms. She says all their royalties should be taken from them by the government and given to writers’ workshops to help the up and coming intellectual. She’s about fifty-three. I would say Diarmuid is a bit younger.
“I don’t think there’s much more to Diarmuid than what you see. He is a supremely vain man and yet appears proud of his unlikeable wife. That atmosphere between them this morning was totally new. He’s in real estate, so he can’t be doing too well at the moment with the fall in the market.
“John Wetherby. Well, that seems to have been an odd marriage. He delights in running Jane down. I sometimes wonder if she had affairs to score off him. I sometimes wonder if she had any affairs at all. She is a good business woman, but I can’t seem to find anything deeper than what you see on the surface. John is a successful banister, opinionated to the point of smugness. Why he accepted Jane’s invitation I do not know. I cannot see one trace of affect
ion in his manner towards her. I gather he is a trifle mean and Jane told me he probably jumped at the idea of a free holiday.”
Hamish winced and said quickly, “And the Carpenters?”
“He’s got a farm in north Yorkshire. At first when I saw them flirting with each other and cooing at each other, I thought that marriage looked too good to be true, but I think they are a genuinely nice and rather innocent couple.”
“And Harriet Shaw?”
She smiled and he liked the way her eyes crinkled up.
“Widow, no children, writes cookery books which are moderately successful. Gets money from occasional television programmes and cookery articles for magazines. Wonders what she is doing on this bleak island talking about suspects to a policeman.”
Hamish laughed. “Drink up and let’s see this Bannerman woman. I’ll just find out at the bar where she lives.”
Harriet waited for him at the door. “Last cottage at the end of the main street, on the left,” said Hamish, returning from the bar. “Let’s get out of here. You could cut the hostility with a knife.”
As they were leaving, a housemaid, about to descend the stairs, saw them, and retreated quickly.
“Nobody loves us,” mourned Hamish.
They walked down the main street, and women appeared outside their cottages and stood watching them. One approached them, a small woman with a fat white face. She caught hold of Hamish’s sleeve and began to talk to him urgently in Gaelic. Hamish listened patiently and then shook himself free and walked on.
“What did she say?” asked Harriet.
“She said that Jane’s a whore. There was a bad storm the other week and two of the fishermen were washed overboard. They say it’s God’s punishment for having a scarlet woman on the island. Jane’s been here for two years now. Doesn’t she notice any of this? She got me here to protect her because she thinks someone’s trying to kill her. Well, after listening to that woman, I’ve decided that maybe someone is, and if she doesn’t shut up shop soon and leave, they’ll drown her.”
“How did she know who we are?”
“They saw me arriving with her off the boat. Two men left the bar while we were there. The fact that I spoke to them in Gaelic would go round the village in minutes. Here’s this Bannerman woman’s place.”
She opened the door before they could knock. “I knew you wass coming,” she intoned. Harriet looked startled, but Hamish grinned and said, “Phoned you from the bar, did they?”
“Come in,” she said rather huffily. They entered a low, dark parlour. Mrs. Bannerman ushered them into chairs and sat facing them.
She was in her thirties, guessed Hamish, and was wearing what looked like a 1960s Carnaby Street outfit: peasant blouse, flowered skirt, bare feet, and beads. Her hair was long and straggly and she had a thin, unhealthy-looking face and small black eyes. He saw with surprise that her neck was dirty. It was not often one saw a dirty neck these days.
She leaned forward and looked into Hamish’s eyes. “Well, Hamish Macbeth,” she crooned, “and what haff you to say tome?”
Harriet started thinking the woman really had psychic powers, but Hamish glanced at the phone in the corner of the room. His conversation with Sandy would have been overheard. Sandy had a loud voice. Sandy had probably dived into the bar after they left and the barman had phoned Mrs. Bannerman with the details.
“I am here on holiday,” said Hamish, “but I would still like to know why you told Mrs. Wetherby that someone was trying to kill her or going to kill her.”
“I saw death,” moaned Mrs. Bannerman, “right there at the bottom of the cup. I felt a great blackness come ower me.”
“I think you were put up to it, that’s what I think,” said Hamish, becoming tired of all this mumbo-jumbo, particularly as he sensed that Mrs. Bannerman was enjoying herself hugely. “And where is Mr. Bannerman?”
“Dead and gone,” she wailed.
“Dead of what?”
“Died innis bed,” she snapped, her voice momentarily coarsening and losing its Highland accent.
“Where?”
“Ah’m I bein’ accused o’ anything?” demanded Mrs. Bannerman angrily.
“Only that I think you’re a fraud.”
“Whit?” She rose to her feet in a rage. “Get oot o’ ma hoose and go and bile yer heid!”
“That didn’t get you very far,” said Harriet once they were outside.
The Fiat truck rattled along the main street and came to a stop in front of them. “If you’re going back, I’ll gie ye a lift,” called Geordie.
“May as well,” said Hamish. They climbed into the cabin.
“Going all right now?” asked Hamish.
“Aye,” said Geordie. “I gave him a wee bit o’ oil, not that he needs it, but he aye likes a treat.”
Hamish stifled a groan. “Tell me about Mrs. Bannerman,” he said. “She’s not an islander, is she?”
“Naw, herself’s frae Glasgow. Come up here, must hae been about five years ago.”
“So why all the hostility to Mrs. Wetherby and none to her?”
“She doesnae go around dressed in them short skirts,” said Geordie. “Besides, she knows her tea-leaves and ye go careful wi’ someone like that.”
“Did that silly woman tell you that your truck was trying to kill you?” asked Hamish.
“Don’t be daft,” said Geordie. “The truck telt me.”
Hamish gave him an uneasy look, wondering just how deranged Geordie was.
“And what of Mrs. Bannerman’s husband?”
“Doing a stretch for GBH in Barlinnie Prison.”
“What’s g.b.h.?” asked Harriet.
“Grievous bodily harm,” said Hamish but with his eyes still fixed curiously on the driver. “How did you find that out?”
“Her mither arrived frae Glasgow last year on a visit. Rare gossip that woman wass.”
“And who did Bannerman attack?” pursued Hamish.
“I don’t know,” said Geordie. “Will ye leave me tae drive himself in peace?”
They travelled the rest of the way in silence, thanked Geordie when they got off at The Happy Wanderer, and went inside to find the others quite resentful that they had decided to go off on their own.
Hamish asked Jane if he might use her phone and then went into the office and phoned his mother. “Priscilla gone?” he asked.
“No,” said his mother. “She can’t really travel. The roads are still bad. She started fretting about her father and the guests, so I told her to get on to Mr. Johnson at the Lochdubh Hotel. They’re closed down for the winter. I told her to ask him to go up and offer his services for the Christmas period and ask a high price. The colonel will want his money’s worth out o’ Johnson, but he’ll respect someone he’s paying a lot for.”
“Good idea. But I’ll bet she won’t do it.”
“She already has,” said his mother triumphantly.
“My! Can. I speak to her?”
“No, son, she’s out sledging with the children.”
They talked for a little and then Hamish rang off, trying to imagine Priscilla sledging with his brothers and sisters. Hamish had been an only child for many years, and then, when his mother was in her forties, she had begun to produce brothers and sisters for him, three boys and three girls. This largely explained Hamish’s unmarried state, for it was a Highland tradition that the eldest should stay unmarried and help to support the family. He sent everything he could home and had learned to be thrifty, as well as expert at cadging free meals.
Lunch was an edgy affair. He wondered what on earth was up when he entered the dining-room and felt the weight of the silence. Harriet told him afterwards, as they all set out for the afternoon walk with Jane, that Sheila had decided to carry her lunch into the television room in order to watch the midday showing of the Australian soaps. Heather had lectured her on the stupidity of this pastime and had even gone in and switched off the television. Shelia had burst into tears and thrown her first co
urse of vegetable soup at Heather’s head.
They marched inland, Jane striding out in front, the rest trailing behind. The sky was darkening above and the sun was sinking low on the horizon and then, just before darkness fell, Jane stopped and pointed to the west. It was an awesome sight. They were almost at the centre of the island. It was below sea-level. Out to the west, it looked as if the whole of the Atlantic were about to come charging down on them. “How terrifying to look up at the sea,” said Harriet. She moved closer to Hamish and he put an arm around her shoulders and she leaned against him briefly, then straightened up and disengaged herself, her cheeks pink.
The exercise had revived everyone’s spirits and there was a sort of silent agreement not to quarrel. John Wetherby caught up with Jane and they headed back to the hotel. Hamish noticed that John and Jane were talking like old friends.
Dinner was pleasant. Then television destroyed everything. Heather wanted to watch a production of King Lear in modern dress; the rest wanted to watch ‘Cheers’ and ‘The Golden Girls.” Heather lectured them bitterly on the folly of watching rubbish produced by American imperialists. Jane put it to a vote and the American imperialists won. Heather stalked off to bed.
Immediately the atmosphere lightened. Diarmuid stayed to watch the comedies and laughed as hard as the rest. But when it was over, John Wetherby suddenly glared at his ex-wife, who was sharing a sofa with Diarmuid. Jane had changed into a short miniskirt and blouse. “Pull your skirt down, for God’s sake,” he snapped. “You’re showing everything.”
Jane blushed furiously. It was the first time Hamish had seen her really put out. Then she gave that merry laugh and suggested they all move through to the lounge for drinks.
Hamish retired to bed early. Once, more he felt gloomy. Once more he wished he had never come.
♦
The next day was a hell of low cloud and driving rain. House-bound, the guests idled about. Hamish began to read some of Jane’s magazines to pass the time. He found a serial in Women’s Home Journal that was extremely good and rifled through the back numbers until he had got the whole book and settled down comfortably to read.