by M C Beaton
Harriet looked doubtful. “Would such as Jessie recognise a block-buster? Then we’re back to means and opportunity. Jessie was not on the island when Heather was killed.”
“But Diarmuid was,” said Hamish. “That brief fling with Jane could have been a blind.”
“He’d need to have been awfully fast to follow Heather all the way over to the other side of the island, run all the way back, and then hop into bed with Jane,” pointed out Harriet, “Then striking her down in the dark when he was supposed to be searching for her – well, that’s hardly premeditated, and if there’s money for a book involved, her death would have to be worked out carefully beforehand.”
“There’s something there,” muttered Hamish. “I can feel it.”
He picked up the phone and dialed the editor in New York. “I’m sorry to keep bothering you, but it’s terribly important that I find out who wrote that book I was asking you about.”
“Look, all right, all right,” said the editor, “I’ll give you the author’s name. It’s Fiona Stuart.”
“Her address?”
The editor’s voice was terse. “Sorry, can’t do that.”
Hamish sadly replaced the receiver. “It’s no go. The book was written by someone called Fiona Stuart. Of course it could be a pseudonym.”
“Give up, Hamish,” said Harriet. “I’m beginning to think it way an accident.”
“lust one more try,” begged Hamish. “Let me speak to that agent of yours.”
Harriet sighed but phoned her agent in New York and told the surprised man that a Highland constable called Hamish Macbeth wished to speak to him about that block-buster.
“Well, you’re in luck,” said the agent as soon as Hamish was on the phone. “The advance publicity is out. It’s a saga of vice and crime and passion in the Highlands of Scotland, purple prose, I gather, at its worst. It’s a story about a sensitive heroine who is raped by some Highland lord in Chapter One, gang-raped by yuppies in Chapter Two, mugged in Chapter Three. Falls in love with the villain in Chapter Four, and eventually, after bags of sex and mayhem, meets her true love in tune for a steamy clinch in the last chapter, her true love being the one who raped her in Chapter One. It’s called Rising Passion and is reputed to out-Jackie Collins. Fiona Stuart is the name of the author.”
Hamish put down the phone and told Harriet what her agent had said. “Hardly a romance,” he commented.
“That’s romance these days,” said Harriet drily. “I bet it all bears no relation to the Highlands whatsoever, and what woman in her right mind would fall in love with a man who’d raped her?”
Hamish put his head in his hands. “There must be some connection.” He phoned the editor again. “I told you and told you,” snapped the editor, “I can’t tell you anything about her. Why don’t you phone her agent, for Chrissakes?”
“Can you give me the name of her agent?” asked Hamish. He waited. He was not hopeful at all. He expected the editor to read him out the name of a New York agent. Her American voice twanged over the line. “Here it is. Jessie Maclean, 1256b Billhead Road, Glasgow.”
“Thank you,” said Hamish faintly. He put down the phone and turned to Harriet. “Jessie’s the agent. How does that work?”
“Easy!” cried Harriet, looking excited. “All my money goes to my agent. He takes his percentage and then sends the rest to me. If he decided to cash the money and disappear abroad, there’s nothing I could do about it. Jessie takes Heather’s book and acts as agent. She tells Heather she’s sent it off to a New York publisher. Maybe, if she was shrewd enough, she’d send several copies round the New York publishers and then play one off against the other. Then she gets the stupendous offer of half a million. She doesn’t tell Heather, but she knows the minute the book is published, Heather would know about it.”
“But Heather might never have known about it,” said Hamish. “She – Jessie, I mean – could just sit back and not offer it to any publisher in Britain. That way there would be a good chance that Heather would never find out about it being published in America.”
“But don’t you see, Hamish, for half a million she probably sold the world rights.”
“Aye, but wait a minute, for that sort of money, wouldn’t any editor want to talk to the author?”
“Doesn’t need to. All the agent has to say is that the author is very retiring, so retiring she’s written under a pseudonym. Jessie can cope with the copy-edited manuscript and the galleys and all that.”
“So we’ve done it,” said Hamish, clutching his red hair.
“But how do we prove it? There’s no Fiona Stuart. It must be Heather’s book and Jessie pinched it. But proof? All Jessie has to say is that she wrote the book herself under an assumed name and acted as her own agent. There’s no law against that. And even if we could prove it was Heather’s book, how could we tie Jessie in with the murder? She wasn’t on the island. She didn’t know about Heather’s death until Diarmuid phoned her.”
“Wait a bit,” said Harriet. “I’ve just had an idea. Listen to this. Diarmuid’s the sort of weak man who has always had his life run for him by two women, Heather at home and Jessie in the office. Such a man likes to pretend he’s the one who makes all the decisions. What if Jessie phoned him?”
Hamish looked at her silently for a long moment and then phoned The Happy Wanderer. It was a bad line and Jane’s voice sounded tinny and very far away. Hamish clutched the phone hard as he asked, “Did Diarmuid receive any phone calls on the night Heather’s death was discovered?”
“He received one from some woman,” came Jane’s voice. “He took it in my office.”
“So far so good,” said Harriet when Hamish told her. “But she wasn’t on the island.”
They argued on about the pros and cons of the case until Harriet suggested they should see a movie and take their minds off it and return to the problem afresh. But nothing new occurred to either of them. Again, outside her door that night, Hamish wondered whether to try to kiss her, but again she had closed the door on him before he could summon up the courage.
Hamish lay in his bed, tossing and turning, thinking about Eileencraig. He fell into an uneasy sleep about two in the morning, and in his dreams he was being forced off the jetty by Geordie’s truck while the maid from The Highland Comfort stood and laughed. He awoke abruptly and switched on the bedside light. That maid, glimpsed briefly, in the shadowy darkness of the stair. Fat with red hair. Wait a bit. What of a Jessie minus horn-rimmed glasses, with pads in her cheeks to fatten them and a red wig on her head? He could hardly wait for breakfast to expound this latest theory to his Watson. “Won’t work,” said Harriet. “The hotel would ask for her employment card.”
“Not necessarily,” said Hamish. “Goodness, if all the employees in hotels in Britain had to have employment cards, well, there’d be self-service. And The Highland Comfort must find it nearly impossible to get staff.”
“I can’t buy that,” retorted Harriet. “There’s little enough work on these islands as it is. Look at all the women eager to work for Jane.”
“That’s different. I bet Jane pays high wages. It’s no use phoning up the owner of The Highland Comfort because he’s not going to admit to a copper that he hires staff without employment cards. The owner’s also the barman and he was complaining about having to do everything himself. Come on, Harriet, we’re going to search Jessie’s desk.”
Diarmuid was at home. He looked surprised at being asked for his office keys but surrendered them without too much of a fuss, which Hamish thought was highly suspicious, because surely a man would expostulate over a continuing investigation by a Highland bobby when his superiors had said the case was closed.
The estate office was in St. Vincent Street in the centre of Glasgow. Already it had a depressed air of failure about it. Outside, above the street, Christmas decorations winked on and off, intensifying the shadowy gloom of the deserted office.
Harriet switched oh the lights and looked about. �
�Well, this is easy. Her desk has her name on it. It’s probably locked.”
But the desk drawers slid open easily. Typing paper and carbons in the top drawer, headed stationery in the second, files in the third containing correspondence to do with the sale of houses.
“Nothing,” said Hamish, disgusted. “Absolutely nothing. We’d better take the keys back to Diarmuid.”
A grey drizzle was falling. Christmas was past and people were getting ready for the New Year’s Eve celebrations still to come, but the city wore a tired, tawdry air, as if the Calvinistic ghosts of Glasgow were frowning at all this leisure time. The shops were full of people changing gifts and people clutching bits of toys which they had been supposed to assemble at home, but whose instructions they could not follow, probably because the instructions had been badly translated from Hong Kong Chinese. Christmas had done its usual merry work of setting husband against wife, relative against relative, and spreading bad will among men in general. People looked overfed and hung over and desperately worried about how much they had already spent.
A drunk man on the corner was singing, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” It sounded like a sneer.
“I hate this time of the year,” said Hamish. “Hardly any daylight. I wish they’d make Christmas a religious festival and stop all this nonsense of decorations, cards, and gifts. A waste of money.” Then he blushed, because he was staying in Glasgow at Harriet’s expense and did not want her to think him mean.
“The trouble with Christmas,” said Harriet, “is that everyone somehow wants to recapture the glitter and magic of childhood, and it never happens if you look for it. I sometimes think that the people who spend Christmas serving meals to the homeless get the best out of it. Easter’s a different matter, but Christmas will always be a pagan festival. The Americans have the best festival – Thanksgiving. No stupid presents, just a good dinner and thanks to God, that’s the way Christmas should be.”
And having thoroughly depressed each other, Hamish and Harriet made their way back to Diarmuid’s to return the keys.
≡≡≡
Diarmuid seemed almost glad to see them this time. He insisted they come indoors and join him for a drink. Harriet privately thought that the sheer relief of never having to see his wife again had hit him at last. As they sat and talked, Hamish discovered to his amazement that Diarmuid thought his investigations merely a matter of police form. “I never knew you chaps were so thorough,” said Diarmuid, sipping a large whisky. “And all because of an accident.”
“Well, just to be even more thorough,” said Hamish, looking about, “could I inspect Heather’s things?”
“I gave her clothes to Oxfam,” said Diarmuid. “Is that what you mean?”
He was wearing an open-necked shirt with a silk cravat. He felt the cravat and a worried frown marred his good looks. He stood in front of the mirror over the fireplace and carefully straightened his cravat. He looked at his reflection in the glass and slowly smiled. Hamish thought that Diarmuid had forgotten their very existence. He was looking at what he loved most in the world.
“Not clothes,” said Hamish. “I was thinking more of paper and notebooks.”
“Mmm?” Diarmuid turned as reluctantly away from his reflection as a lover does from the face of his beloved. “Oh, Jessie was round yesterday afternoon and cleaned the place up. She’s got a kind heart. I couldn’t bear to do it myself.”
“And where did she put the stuff?”
“Into a couple of big garbage bags. Why?”
“Where are the garbage bags?” said Hamish, getting to his feet.
“Downstairs, ready for collection. As a matter of fact, the garbage truck should be along about now. What…?”
He looked in amazement as Hamish and Harriet ran from the room. Then he turned back to the glass and practised a slow, enigmatic smile. He thought that if he could raise one eyebrow like Roger Moore, it would enhance the effect.
Hamish, with Harriet behind him, hurtled out into the street. A small man was just heaving up two bags of garbage to put into the crusher.
“I want these back,” shouted Hamish.
The man hurled them down on the pavement, shrugged and followed the now slowly moving garbage truck along the street.
“Treasure trove,” said Hamish. “Let’s get these back inside and hae a look.”
Diarmuid was still practising how to raise that eyebrow as they entered the sitting-room, Hamish holding the two bags.
“We’ll chust go through these,” said Hamish.
“Mmm.” Diarmuid did not even turn round. There must be some way he could achieve it, but try as he would, both eyebrows kept going up at the same time.
Hamish opened one bag and Harriet the other and they began to sift, through the papers. Then Hamish whistled through his teeth. “Look at this.”
Harriet took the proffered page.
There was no doubt, it was part of a steamy novel. He took it from her and asked Diarmuid, “Is this your wife’s handwriting?”
Diarmuid turned reluctantly away from the mirror. “Yes, that’s Heather’s, all right. What’s this all about?”
“Did you really call Jessie to get her to come to Eileencraig?” asked Hamish. “Or did she phone you?”
Diarmuid looked uneasy. “Well, it’s hard to remember. I was in shock.”
“It’s verra important!”
“Well,” mumbled Diarmuid, “she did phone me, as a matter of fact, just to find out how I was getting along, and I told her about Heather’s death and she said she would come up right away. She asked me to phone and arrange for a boat to collect her at Oban.”
Without asking his permission, Hamish picked up the phone and dialled Jessie’s number. There was no reply. “Come on,” he said to Harriet. “I’ve an awful feeling she’s gone.”
They took a taxi the short distance to Jessie’s. It turned out to be a basement flat. He did not even bother to ring the bell. There was a forlorn, deserted air about the place. A woman was leaning against the railings outside talking to another woman. Hamish approached them.
“Have you seen Miss Jessie Maclean this morning?” he asked.
“Aye,” said one of the women placidly.
“Do you know where she was going?” Hamish demanded, “Shopping?”
“No’ unless it was shopliftin’,” said the woman and her friend laughed heartily at her wit. “She had two suitcases. Yes, she left about an hour ago wi’ her man.” – “What man?”
“Her fella. An accountant, I think that’s what she said.”
Hamish thought hard. Spain! That was where she had said she might go. He turned to the woman again. “May I use your phone? I am a policeman.”
“He must be in trouble again, Betty,” said the woman’s friend.
“In trouble? What this about trouble?” asked Hamish feverishly.
“Her man, her boyfriend. He’d done a stretch in prison, I know that,” said the woman called Betty, “because Mrs. Queen doon the road’s son used tae go tae school wi’ him and recognised nun and knew all about him.”
“Phone, please,” begged Hamish.
“I’ll take him in,” said Betty to her friend. She led Hamish up to the front door above Jessie’s basement, opened it with her key and let him into a dark hall. Hamish and Harriet waited in an agony of impatience while she fumbled with the key to the door of her ground-floor flat.
“In the hall on the table,” said Betty.
The hall was actually a dim corridor. Hamish searched through the phone book and then dialled Glasgow Airport. “Yes,” came the metallic voice from the other end in reply to Hamish’s question. “There’s a plane due to take off for Spain. It’s a charter flight delayed for mechanical reasons, but expected to leave any minute now.”
Hamish asked to be put through to airport security and introduced himself. “Find Out if there’s a Jessie Maclean on the flight to Spain, that charter flight.”
There was a long wait and then he
was told there was no one of that name on the flight. He turned to the woman who was standing in the hall with a small pocket calculator, obviously working out how much to charge him for the call. “What’s the boyfriend’s name?” he demanded.
“Macdonald,” she said. “Willie Macdonald.”
Hamish spoke quickly into the phone and then waited impatiently.
Back came the reply after five agonizing minutes. “Yes, there is a Mr. and Mrs. Macdonald on board.”
“There’s a murder suspect on that plane,” said Hamish. “Get Mr. and Mrs. Macdonald off it and keep them at the airport.” Harriet, listening, heard the voice at the other end quack indignantly.
“Yes, yes,” said Hamish. “I’ll get the proper authority. Don’t let them get away!”
He put down the phone and said to Harriet. “Let’s go.”
“Whit about paying for the call?” demanded Betty. He handed her a pound note and, dragging Harriet after him, ran out and down the street, looking for a cab. It was Hogmanay, New Year’s Eve, he thought. There would be very few, if any, free cabs about. And then he saw a taxi with its light on rounding a corner and raced for it, with Harriet tumbling after him. He told the cabby to take them to police headquarters.
“How are you going to manage it, Hamish?” asked Harriet anxiously. “You’ve no proof. I mean, you’ve proof that she pinched Heather’s book but no proof she murdered her.”
“I’ll get proof,” said Hamish, leaning forward and willing the cab to go faster.
At Glasgow police headquarters there were more delays while a detective sergeant phoned Strathbane to establish Hamish’s credentials. But Hamish was lucky, Blair was still on holiday, and it was Jimmy Anderson, slightly drunk, who said that Hamish Macbeth was Scotland’s answer to Kojak, and if he said there was a murderer at Glasgow Airport, then there surely was.
Soon Harriet found herself crammed into a police car along with Hamish, two detectives, and a policewoman while a carload of four policemen followed behind. They had only gone a little way when Hamish shouted, “Stop!”