Grace had clearly welcomed the diversion her sister had caused. She’d been rather shaken by the interview after all, and the respite gave her the chance to reassemble her nerves. ‘Was there anything else, Inspector?’ Her voice was steady.
‘No, I don’t think so, for the present.’ McGillivray stood up, then added, ‘Did Miss Souter ever tell you that somebody was trying to poison her?’
Grace looked startled. ‘Did she say that?’
A small sigh disturbed them, as Violet Grant slowly slid off her chair in a faint.
When Sergeant Black arrived back at the police station, he saw James Randall coming out of his surgery, on the other side of the High Street. ‘Good morning, Doctor,’ he called. ‘Have you a minute? We’ve had the result of the autopsy.’
Randall frowned, but walked over. ‘You sound pleased about it. Don’t tell me it was a suspicious death after all?’
‘Not just suspicious, Doctor, murder!’ Black tried not to look too triumphant that the other man had been proved wrong. ‘The first examination showed a needle mark in the back of her neck, so they sent the body to Aberdeen. The pathologist found that she’d been injected with insulin.’
‘Insulin? But she wasn’t a diabetic . . . Oh, of course. That’s why it killed her. By God! That was a crafty move on somebody’s part. It gives exactly the same symptoms as a heart attack. Years ago it wouldn’t have been detected at all, but they’ve new methods of spotting things now. As far as I was concerned, she gave every appearance of having suffered a coronary.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Black wore an expression which plainly said, ‘Pull the other one!’ and Doctor Randall was stung into saying, ‘If you don’t believe me, ask the pathologist.’
‘It’s not me you’ll have to convince, it’s the Grampian CID men. They’re questioning the ladies at Honeysuckle Cottages at the moment but I’m sure they’ll want to see you too.’
‘Fine by me, I’ll go up there as soon as I’ve made my first call.’ James Randall walked angrily over to his car. Almost fifteen minutes later, he’d arrived at the top of Ashgrove Lane, and was sitting trying to make his mind up which of the two cottages to try, when two men came out of Number Three and made to go into the middle house.
He stepped out on to the road and called out, ‘Good morning. I’m Doctor Randall.’
The older, and scruffier, of the two hurried down the path. ‘Ah, I’m Detective Chief Inspector McGillivray, Grampian Region CID. I was wanting a word with you.’
‘So I believe. I was speaking to Sergeant Black, and . . .’
McGillivray turned round and shouted to David Moore. ‘Carry on in there yourself, Sergeant. I won’t be long.’ He waited until the young man disappeared inside before he turned back.
‘Black tells me Miss Souter was killed by insulin being injected into her system?’ Randall was still smarting at the sergeant’s manner.
‘A clever dodge, wasn’t it, Doctor? Unfortunately for the killer, it can be detected in a post-mortem these days, otherwise it would have passed for a heart attack.’
Randall laughed ruefully. ‘I wish you’d tell Black that. His opinion of me hit rock bottom, because I’d sworn the old lady died naturally.’
‘Did you know her very well?’
‘Not really. She was one of that disappearing breed of women, strong as an ox, who never need the services of a doctor. I could safely say that I haven’t seen her more than five times in the twenty-three years I’ve been here, and three of those were when she fell on the ice and broke her ankle. The last time I saw her was . . . oh . . . must be seven years ago.’
‘Was that for anything serious?’
Randall laughed. ‘I called on her to tell her that, because she’d reached eighty, I’d be looking in from time to time to see that she was keeping well. She informed me, in no uncertain terms, not to bother, and that she’d send for me if she needed me.’
‘She’d never given you any cause to be angry with her?’
The doctor laughed even louder. ‘Are you trying to tell me I’m a suspect? She was a damned awkward patient at the time of her broken ankle, but doctors come up against her kind all the time. Not that there are many round here, I’m glad to say. This is the only practice I’ve ever had since I qualified, and I’m very happy here, even if I wasn’t too sure when I first came. Small village, large farming hinterland and all that, but they’re a friendly lot, and I was never treated like an outsider.’
‘Have you picked up any gossip, or rumours, that might point to a possible killer? Someone she’d done the dirty on, or anything like that?’
‘Nothing, I’m afraid. I don’t really listen to any of the local tittle-tattle, being a bachelor.’
‘Ho, hum! Oh well, I’d better let you get back to your healing. Sorry to have held you up, Doctor’
Randall saluted. ‘That’s OK. You’ve got your job to do, the same as I have. Call on me any time, if you need me.’ He ducked into his car and reversed into Mabel Wakeford’s gateway.
‘Friendly sort of fellow, that doctor,’ McGillivray remarked, when he joined his sergeant in Janet Souter’s cottage.
Chapter Seven
Saturday 26th November, morning continued
Slumped on the bed, Callum McGillivray dislodged his left shoe with his right foot and let it drop to the floor, then repeated the process with his other shoe.
‘That’s better,’ he sighed, wiggling his toes in relief. ‘New shoes play merry hell with my tootsies.’ He heaved his muscular body up a bit, and doubled the pillow to make a pad for his back. ‘We haven’t got much, have we?’
Sitting on the upright chair, which was the only other place in the hotel bedroom he could park himself, David Moore pulled his notebook out of his pocket. ‘It’s funny, though, nobody we’ve spoken to so far had a good word to say about Janet Souter.’
He flipped back some pages. ‘According to what they told us, she went out of her way to put people’s backs up.’
‘Mmm . . . hmmm.’ The inspector had fished out his cigarettes, and was trying to coax some life into his lighter. When a tiny flame did appear, he touched it lightly with the cigarette between his lips and puffed madly until it ignited.
‘Old women often turn nasty and disagreeable, but she sounds a right besom. Mrs Wakeford never mentioned any actual trouble between herself and the dead woman, but Mrs Skinner couldn’t wait to tell us things she’d done to annoy them. Would she be smart enough to put up a bluff, would you say?’
‘You mean she was deliberately trying to put us off the track by running down the victim like that?’ Moore pondered briefly, then shook his head. ‘You can’t suspect Mrs Skinner. She was just being honest about all the trouble they’d had with Janet Souter.’
‘You think so?’ McGillivray rubbed his stubby forefinger across his chin, then screwed up his eyes against the smoke from his cigarette. ‘And the other one, Mrs Grant, was as jittery as a virgin on her first night. Her faint couldn’t have been better timed.’
‘Oh no, sir, it wasn’t put on. She’s a very nervous lady, and the questioning had been too much for her.’
‘Oh aye?’ The inspector sounded sceptical as he drew an envelope out of his pocket. ‘We’d better have a look at the bumf that constable gave me.’ He opened the typewritten sheet and began to read aloud.
‘Miss Janet Souter’s nephews. One, Ronald Baker, fifty-five, of 36 Newton Avenue, Thornkirk. Small engineering business. Wife, Flora. Two, Stephen Drummond, fifty-one, of 147 Kingswood Drive, Thornkirk. Grocery shop. Wife, Barbara. Dead woman’s estate left equally between Ronald Baker and Stephen Drummond, confirmed by her solicitor, Martin Spencer, business address, 21 George Square, Thornkirk.’
He lifted his head. ‘That seems straightforward enough. Ronald and Stephen have an obvious reason for getting rid of the old aunt – probably got fed up waiting till she popped off under her own steam. We’ll let them sweat till tomorrow, I think. A little bit of suspense sometimes works wonders.’
Laying the paper on the bed beside him, he looked at his watch. ‘Twenty to twelve. Just time for you to nose round the local shops, before lunch at one. That’s one thing about a small village, everything’s within spitting distance, and the shopkeepers might have picked up bits of gossip from their customers. And, if you’ve time, Moore, see if you can track down that boy who delivered the papers. He might have remembered something that struck him as being out of the ordinary.’
‘Yes, sir.’ David Moore stood up and pushed his chair back under the small table.
‘I’ll stay here, to give my feet a rest, and write out a few notes on what I think we’ve got already. See you later.’ The inspector lay back, with his hands behind his head.
The young sergeant reflected ruefully that his feet would also be glad of a rest, after hunting round the murdered woman’s cottage and garden for a couple of hours. Thank goodness the shops were only a few doors away from the hotel, and all quite close together, as McGillivray had said. The ironmonger was first, so he looked at the name above the door and went in, trying to look a bit more alert than he felt.
‘Mr Hood? I’m Sergeant Moore, Grampian CID, and I’d like to ask you a few questions about Miss Janet Souter, of Honeysuckle Cottages.’
‘Certainly, Sergeant. I heard she’d died.’ Robert Hood straightened his grey nylon overall round his podgy body and tried, by drawing himself up to his full five feet five, to look important. ‘I didn’t know her all that well, she only bought odds and ends occasionally, and the last time I saw her was two or three weeks ago when she came in for rat poison. She was troubled with rats in her garden – has been for years.’
‘She’d bought rat poison before, had she?’
‘Quite regularly, but the rats kept on appearing. There’s an old warehouse, you see, near the railway line at the foot of Ashgrove Lane, that’s where they breed, I think, and the old woman often forgot to put the lid back on her dustbin when she was putting out rubbish, so that would have attracted them. But she didn’t buy the rat poison that day. Davie Livingstone happened to be here at the same time, and he told her he’d give her some arsenic.’
Moore looked, he hoped, suitably surprised. ‘Oh?’
The ironmonger grinned. ‘Don’t tell me you hadn’t heard about the arsenic?’
‘Well, yes, I had.’ The sergeant looked sheepish. ‘But how did this man come to have arsenic? It’s not a thing you keep handy in case you need it.’
‘Davie worked in the glass factory before he retired, and they use arsenic for making glass. Anyway, he was bothered with rats himself for a while, and he’d made a point of taking a small amount home with him every week for months before he stopped working. He told Miss Souter it was quicker and better than rat poison, and he said he’d take some up to her. He sometimes did a bit of gardening for her, the rough stuff, you know.’
‘But, Mr Hood . . .’
The man raised one hand from the counter and held it up. ‘Before you say it, I know it’s against the law to have arsenic, but I thought, if it made Davie happy, what the hell? He’d have known exactly how dangerous it was.’
‘It was more dangerous for a woman of Miss Souter’s age to be tampering with it . . . Would he have been on good enough terms with her?’
Robert Hood spluttered. ‘Nobody was on good terms with her, and you’re surely not suspecting him of an ulterior motive? Davie Livingstone wouldn’t hurt a fly . . . Just rats,’ he added.
The sergeant considered for a moment. ‘Do you think Miss Souter could have taken the arsenic accidentally, forgotten to wash her hands, or something like that?’
‘Oh, no. She wasn’t senile, and Davie warned her to wash her hands thoroughly. She wouldn’t have been careless with it, I’m sure. She’s definitely been murdered.’
The sergeant pursed his lips. ‘Can you think of any person who might have wanted to kill her?’
‘I know she wasn’t well liked, but . . . murder! That needs to be a very special kind of hate.’
‘Yes. Was there anyone . . . have you heard any rumours?’
Robert Hood shook his head. ‘She was always rubbing somebody up the wrong way, and I’ve heard lots of people moaning about her, but there’s been nothing all that bad for a long time.’
‘Oh well. Thank you for giving me your time, Mr Hood, and if anything comes to your mind, let me know. Just contact the police station.’
‘I’ll certainly keep thinking, but I don’t believe I’ll be able to help.’
The butcher, John Robertson, tall and well built, rolled his eyes dramatically when Moore asked him how well he’d known Janet Souter. ‘A headcase, that woman, a real headcase. Came in here at least once a week, occasionally twice, and was never satisfied with anything. Stringy beef, fatty sausages, too dear. You know the kind of thing. Not bloody happy unless she was upsetting somebody.’
His ruddy face suddenly lit up. ‘I’ll give you an example. Just a week ago yesterday, she gave me a mouthful in front of all my customers about the price of the steak. She ended up buying mutton instead, because it was cheaper, yet she’s bought steak every Friday for years.’ He laughed. ‘That’s the kind of woman she was, Sergeant, and I say good riddance to bad rubbish. I wish I’d thought of doing away with her myself.’
David Moore wasn’t surprised at what the man had told him. It was just the sort of behaviour that he’d have expected from the dead woman, judging by all the opinions of her, so far. ‘You’re telling me that she was a nasty person, Mr Robertson, but would you know of anybody who might have wanted to kill her?’
The butcher laughed grimly. ‘The whole village has felt like killing her at one time or another, I’m sure.’
The detective remained serious. ‘That’s not quite the same as carrying it out, though.’
‘No, that’s true. Poisoning’s a dirty game; it has to be well thought out, not a spur-of-the-moment sort of crime. If she’d been hit on the head with a blunt instrument, or stabbed with her own kitchen knife, or strangled, or something physical like that, I’d have said quite a few people could have been capable, but not poison.’
Scratching his head, he went on, ‘It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, poison.’ He let out a loud guffaw, and slapped the counter with his large hand in appreciation of his own accidental wit. ‘Never mind me, Sergeant, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, but it’s true, whatever way you look at it, isn’t it?’
David Moore smiled. ‘Thank you, Mr Robertson, you’ve been very helpful.’ He walked out of the shop, leaving the butcher still chuckling to himself, but reflecting that murder wasn’t really anything to laugh about.
His call at the bank manager’s house drew a blank, because the man didn’t know Miss Souter except to see her, and from what he had heard from others.
‘She didn’t deal with us here. Apparently, she was afraid people would get to know her affairs, though I’m sure I would never have passed on any information about her if she had used our facilities.’
‘No, of course not,’ Moore felt obliged to agree.
The hairdresser was very busy, but took time to say that Janet Souter had gone there once a month, and had never been pleased with what had been done.
‘If there had been another hairdresser in the place, she’d have gone to them and complained, the same as she did here.’
‘Have any of your customers spoken about her murder? I’d have thought that would be a subject they’d love to get their teeth into.’
‘Some of them have mentioned it.’ The young woman glanced at her watch. ‘But they’re all sure it was one of her nephews that did it. Now, I’m sorry, but I have to get on.’
Moore had thought he’d pick up some gossip in the hairdressing salon in the High Street, but no such luck. He crossed disconsolately to the other side of the street, where there were only two shops, a chemist and a general store.
In the first, the chemist, a tall, balding man, looked up, smiling until the sergeant stated his busine
ss. Then his air of bonhomie disappeared. ‘Miss Souter was a customer, but not one I was ever very friendly with, I’m afraid. Her health was always good, so she never bought medications of any kind, only small items of toiletries, and she never failed to complain about the prices. She was disagreeable and unpleasant, and I, for one, am not sorry she’s dead.’
He looked at Moore and smiled grimly. ‘I expect that shocks you, but you’ll probably get the same reaction from all the other shopkeepers. She wasn’t very popular with any of us.’
‘So I’ve gathered.’ Moore returned his smile, ruefully. ‘Have you any theory about who killed her?’
‘Anyone, I suppose. We all knew she had some arsenic, but it’s most likely to have been one of her nephews, isn’t it? None of us was going to gain anything by doing away with her.’
The shop next door was a general store, with a notice up outside informing the world that it was also a post office. The bell tinkled when David Moore went in, and three pairs of eyes turned to look at him. He wished that he’d remembered to check the name outside, but moved over to the post office grille.
‘Er, good morning. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m Detective Sergeant Moore from Grampian Police, and we’re investigating the murder of Miss Souter of Honeysuckle Cottages. I hope you don’t mind answering some questions, Miss . . . er . . . ?’
The thin, sour-faced postmistress gave a slight condescending smile. ‘It’s Miss Wheeler, and Sergeant Black of the local police has already asked me what I know. I don’t think there’s anything further I can tell you.’
‘Perhaps you could tell me what sort of person she was, and that kind of thing.’ The woman’s manner had made him feel at a disadvantage, so he pulled out his notebook to give his visit an air of serious officialdom.
‘Oh, that’s different.’ Miss Wheeler was obviously pleased to be asked this. ‘I’ve known her for twenty-two and a half years, ever since I came here to take over this shop.’
‘Were you friendly with her?’
Jam and Jeopardy Page 7