Hook or Crook

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘We could go through for an early dinner,’ Eric suggested. ‘You’ll join us, Mr McIver?’

  ‘Do call me Tony. Thank you.’

  ‘But Jean will be waiting at table,’ Bea pointed out. ‘The small coffee room’s probably empty.’

  Tony went to see and reported that the room was vacant. We moved through, Eric pausing en route to collect another round of drinks.

  ‘This is where I spoke to Jean,’ Bea said when we were seated. ‘I ordered coffee for two and then browbeat her into joining me. It seemed the simplest way to get hold of her.

  ‘I didn’t want her to get off on the wrong foot by lying or running to her dad, so I plunged straight in. I told her that she was doing Imad far more harm than good with her lies and evasions . . . if he was innocent, I said rather pointedly. That got her talking. Imad wouldn’t hurt a soul, she said, he was a very gentle person and, besides, why would he want to hurt Mr Hollister? I pointed out that he’d had a dashed good try to strangle Mr Hollister and she said that it was all Mr Hollister’s fault for saying something awful, she didn’t know what, that Imad had been ashamed of it afterwards and that Mr Hollister had apologized. I asked whether she had heard the apology. She admitted that she hadn’t, but she insisted that Imad wouldn’t lie to her. I’m afraid she’s not very bright.’

  ‘But —’ Tony began.

  ‘I’m coming to but,’ Bea said firmly. ‘I said that that was all very well, but Imad would have to explain how he had known that Mr Hollister was dead and why he had stopped showing his face before the body had even been identified. At that point she turned red and then white and some perfectly genuine tears came. She showed all the signs of somebody caught between Scylla and Charybdis.’

  ‘Between who?’ Tony demanded.

  ‘Between two deadly dangers. She wouldn’t volunteer any more after that, so I resorted to leading questions. Was somebody threatening her? Or Imad? Eventually, she gave in and nodded. Who? She didn’t know. Had she had a letter? No. A phone-call? She nodded.’ Bea sighed in exasperation. ‘It was like an exercise in archaeology, digging out a little bit at a time and trying to fit it together, but in the end I got what I believe to be the truth.

  ‘Very late on Monday night, she had a phone-call. A voice told her that Mr Hollister was dead and that there was a great deal of evidence against Imad which would all come out unless he did as he was told, which was to lie low and say nothing. Otherwise he’d be deported and sent home to his family in disgrace and she’d never see him again. There was more — veiled threats of violence but, from what little I could get out of her, nothing very specific. Or else she was too shaken to take it in.’

  ‘The house that Vahhaji’s renting has a phone,’ Tony said. ‘I saw it. So why would they route the message through the hotel?’

  ‘I asked Jean the same question,’ Bea said. ‘She had never thought to wonder about it. But she also says that when she tried to phone Imad she couldn’t get an answer. My own feeling is that they phoned her because she could be expected to panic and put more pressure on Imad than an unidentified voice on the phone. Or else that Mr Vahhaji would have been more likely to recognize that voice.’

  ‘Any accent?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Not that she noticed, but she was in too much a dither to notice anything short of a cleft palate.

  ‘She wasted some time dithering and then dashed along the street, hammered on the door and poured out the story to him. It was after one in the morning by then and he’d already gone to bed with the telephone noisemaker switched off, but the first thing he thought of doing was to throw on some clothes and rush down to Mr Hollister’s caravan to see if it wasn’t all a hoax or a bad dream. But he returned to say that the caravan had gone and he’d nearly had a heart attack when a policeman stopped him.’

  ‘Somebody stopped him?’

  ‘Yes. That was because of the poaching incident, of course.’

  ‘Nobody told me,’ Tony said indignantly. ‘Sometimes I wish that I had enough seniority to stamp heavily on fools. Then I remember that I’d have to take responsibility for them and I’m glad that I’m only a constable. Go on.’

  ‘Jean and Imad talked it over and decided not to take any chances but to do as the voice had said. I think that’s all that she had to say . . . except for one thing. She may only have been trying to divert attention away from Imad but she insisted that, just around the time the bar was to close, she had gone out for a breath of air and found Mr Hollister waiting outside. He asked her whether Alec had gone home yet and she pointed out Alec’s car, still in the car-park.’

  Bea’s quiet authoritative voice halted and she sampled her sherry while she awaited reactions.

  ‘And there could have been a reconciliation or a major punch-up,’ Tony said. ‘I shall speak to Alec.’

  ‘You’ll have to wait until Monday,’ Bea said. ‘Alec leaves early on alternate Saturdays so that he can get the weekend at home. He belongs in Fife but he stays with an aunt near here during the week so that he can attend Aberdeen University in term-time and work in the hotel during vacations.’

  ‘On Monday, he can explain why he did not tell me. So,’ Tony said, ‘by the time that Vahhaji walked down and over the bridge, the poachers had been and gone — possibly, just possibly, taking the body and the motor-caravan with them. Unless one of them was a local, I don’t see them either knowing enough or thinking it necessary to stampede Vahhaji into hiding. I need time to think this over. Either those two have cooked up a not very probable tale or somebody bluffed them into a rather more convincing portrayal of guilty parties.’

  ‘The bluff,’ said Bea firmly. ‘I don’t think that Jean Bruce is a clever enough liar.’

  ‘Far be it from me to contradict a lady,’ said Eric, ‘but I disagree.’ He had been drinking doubles and was becoming flushed and slightly glassy-eyed. He was always inclined to become grandiloquent in his cups. ‘The slightly dimwitted can make the best of liars. See how well it fits together. Hollister goes to Vahhaji’s home, not to apologize but to continue the quarrel.’

  ‘What quarrel?’ I asked.

  ‘That will doubtless come to light. There undoubtedly was a quarrel Whether there was an apology or subsequent further outbreaks of violence, we shall have to see. Hollister returns to the river. It is getting late but the best fishing often comes as the light fails, true or false?’

  ‘True,’ I said.

  ‘Vahhaji follows him. They fight again. Hollister gets hooked in the face and then zonked with his own priest. Vahhaji hides the body — perhaps under the bridge where it would go unnoticed in the fading light — and returns home, observed only by the district nurse.’

  ‘What for?’ Tony asked keenly.

  ‘To wait for full darkness. And,’ Eric said triumphantly, ‘for dry clothes. Remember, he’s almost certainly been in the river. Your house-to-house inquiries should be aimed at finding anyone who saw him heading for home, wet at least to the knees. He is thinking furiously. If the body is found here, his first fight with Hollister will be remembered. But a man with a motor-caravan is essentially transient. If Hollister is found in circumstances which suggest that he died a long way away, the fight may never come to light. When it’s good and dark he returns to the scene, takes the dead man’s keys and fetches the caravan. The path beyond the bridge is wide enough to take it.’

  Bea nodded. ‘Almost all that you’ve said would apply equally to Alec,’ she said. ‘But if either of them loaded the body at the other end of the bridge, what was the caravan doing at the hotel?’

  Eric was in full spate. ‘That’s what puts Imad Vahhaji in the firing line. He called here to make contact with his lady-love. He could drive the caravan over to the Spey, but he had to come back again. It’s a long journey by train and bus and he’d be leaving witnesses all along the way. So she would have to follow him in another car —’

  ‘The white Mini that Mr Bruce gave her for her birthday,’ Bea said. ‘Not that I believe —�
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  ‘— and bring him back.’

  ‘— for a moment —’ said Bea, but she was not to be allowed to finish the sentence. The debate was becoming an argument.

  ‘Or,’ Tony said, ‘Hollister burst in on him, brandishing the priest, and got dunted on the head right there in Vahhaji’s house. When the officer stopped him — which has still to be confirmed — he had just thrown the priest into the river and was on his way to collect the motor-caravan —’

  ‘Which,’ Eric said, ‘had already vanished, according to the ghillie and —’

  There was a perfunctory knock. Ibrahim Imberesh closed the door behind him and stood calmly surveying us, very much his own man. ‘His Excellency directs me to give you some information which has just come to our attention,’ he said to Tony.

  ‘I came here two weeks ago, to ensure that all was safe for His Excellency’s arrival.

  ‘Yesterday, one of the embassy employees who was returning home at the end of his tour handed over his notes and diaries to a colleague. From the notes it seemed that I had telephoned the embassy to ask for an investigation of a certain Mr Hollister. But the colleague noticed that the resulting information was to be phoned to a Bantullich number which was not that of His Excellency’s house. So he thought to contact me and I confirmed that I had made no such request for information. I have that telephone number here’ — he handed a slip of paper to Tony — ‘and I believe it to be the number of the house where a Mr Vahhaji lives. My voice and accent would be easy for any Arabic-speaker to imitate.’

  ‘And what information was furnished?’ Tony asked.

  Imberesh shrugged, managing simultaneously to express ignorance, apology and unconcern. ‘Sadly, there is no note of this and we no longer have any contact with the man. But the request was for information about Mr Hollister’s years working around the eastern Mediterranean.’

  Tony frowned. ‘Were you aware that Mr Hollister is dead?’

  ‘You amaze me,’ Imberesh said, without any sign of interest. ‘We noticed, of course, that there was some unusual activity, but we do not have much contact with the locals.’

  ‘The request referred to Mr Hollister by that name?’ Bea asked.

  If Imberesh was surprised to receive a question from somebody with no status in the inquiry, and a woman, his present veneer of polite unconcern prevented him from expressing it. ‘It did. Presumably he had been recognized.’

  ‘I shall call and take statements from His Excellency and his household,’ Tony said.

  ‘I will ask His Excellency but I do not think that he will wish it. However, I have here a signed statement although it adds very little to what I have already told you.’ Imberesh handed over a slim white envelope, sketched the faintest of bows to the company and prepared to make his exit.

  ‘Wait,’ Tony said. Imberesh paused with eyebrows raised, the picture of a diplomat being hounded by foreign inferiors. ‘You mentioned unusual activity. Did anyone at the ambassador’s residence witness any activity near the bridge on Monday evening?’ Tony asked him.

  Imberesh shrugged. ‘We are unable to help you. His Excellency had received a video of the news from home and we all watched it together. I am so sorry.’ The door closed behind him while Tony was embarking on another question. I had the impression that Imberesh had delivered exactly as much information as he was prepared to divulge and that any further questions would have encountered a polite stone wall.

  Tony sighed ostentatiously. ‘There goes my chance of a decent meal,’ he said. ‘My landlady has no imagination beyond mince, neips and tatties. But I’ll have to go and confront Vahhaji again.’

  ‘What’s the rush?’ said Eric. ‘You’re holding his passport. He isn’t going anywhere.’ He frowned at the closed door, presumably aiming in the direction of Imberesh’s vanished back. ‘I wonder why that slippery Bedouin came with that information. He knew of Hollister’s death all right —’

  ‘Of course he did,’ Tony said.

  ‘Then why pretend not to know?’

  ‘Just to be obstructive and to muddy the waters,’ Tony said. ‘The whole statement may have been made out of spite, because of the enmity between their two countries. Or maybe not. I shan’t be sorry when somebody more senior comes to take up the white man’s burden. Understanding the mind of the Arab is not for underlings like me.’

  ‘Forget it for now,’ Eric said, getting up. ‘Come and eat.’

  Duty and hunger were engaged in a tug of war. ‘Perhaps if they could manage one main course in a hurry . . .’ Tony said weakly.

  But he was young and hungry. With Eric’s example before him, he made a good meal. When we were ready to leave the table, he looked at his watch. ‘It’s late,’ he said, ‘and I have reports to type and fax. You’re right. Vahhaji can wait until morning.’

  In the hall, he thanked Eric politely for the meal and said his good-nights.

  I knew that a large parcel had come off the bus for Eric. My mild curiosity was satisfied when Eric collected it from the reception desk and pushed it into Bea’s arms. ‘Just a present,’ he mumbled.

  It was a moment for privacy so I said good-night to Bea and turned to the stairs. Eric reached the landing on my heels, puffing slightly from the climb. ‘It was your generosity that put it into my mind,’ he said. ‘That and the fact that I hate to see her looking so dowdy. She’s an attractive woman, don’t you think?’ he asked me anxiously.

  ‘Very attractive,’ I said. ‘And intelligent with it.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Eric said. He collected a coat and went downstairs again.

  I decided that it was too early for bed. Archie Struan, I remembered, had always stayed up half the night. I left the hotel and went in search of my old friend.

  *

  On his retirement, Archie had moved in with his married daughter in a small terrace house which, I found, was only forty or fifty yards from the hotel but on the other side of the village street. I picked it out from among others of identical design. An uncurtained dormer window upstairs glowed with light in the gathering dusk.

  I had felt certain that Archie would not go short of a salmon or two. After careful thought I had decided that whisky would also be inappropriate. His only other weakness, I recalled, had been for venison, and Sam Bruce had been able to supply me with a small parcel which I placed in the hands of the daughter, a comfortable woman in middle age with a roguish smile much younger than her years. She led me up a narrow stair and opened a door.

  ‘Dad,’ she said, ‘Mr James is here.’

  ‘I ken that fine,’ said a well-remembered voice. ‘I’ve watched him a’ the way from the hotel.’

  ‘He’s brought you a puckle venison for our tea the morn.’

  The old man smiled a greeting. ‘You’ve not forgotten, then.’ The room was a bedroom, but although he was in slippers and a warm dressing-gown over striped pyjamas he was established in an old but well-padded fireside chair in the dormer window. The curtains were wide open and could rarely have been closed, because a whole range of personal possessions ranked along the windowsill would have had to be moved. Conspicuous among them were an unlabelled bottle of amber liquid, several clean glasses and a small jug of water.

  His hand gestured towards the other chair and then went out to the bottle. ‘You’ll take a dram?’ he asked. He poured without waiting for an answer. I was glad of the confirmation that I had been right not to bring whisky. The ‘water of life’ is so true to its name in the life of many older Scots that it is rare for a house to be without at least one bottle with another in reserve, even when other victuals may be in short supply. I have never managed to explain this to myself except by supposing that there is a hidden economy, dependent largely on supplies finding their way out of the back door of the nearest bottling plant.

  When we were settled with a dram apiece, he asked after those of my friends that we had in common and gave me news of others. Then I had to tell him, fish by fish and almost cast by cast,
about our visits to the rivers Spey and Dee and he treated me to a valuable lecture about what flies to use and where to cast them in the present conditions of weather and water. It was cosy and nostalgic but it was not quite like old times. For one thing, there was a wistfulness in his manner, now that he was no longer a part of the river’s lifeblood. For another, he seemed to be waiting for a chance to introduce another topic. I thought that I could guess what it was and decided to make it easy for him.

  ‘And what’s going on in the village these days?’ I asked him.

  He grinned with relief. ‘It’s been gey quiet until just a week back. Then we had the poachers here and a right bonny rammy atween them and the bailiff and yon young laddie Gheen as took over from me.’ He sighed. ‘I’d ha’ gi’en them laldie. Or maybe no’.’ He looked at his fist, twisted as it was with arthritis. ‘I think one reason they retired me was that I’m getting a wee bit old for the fechting. You heard about the poachers?’

  ‘Bill Gheen and Ed Donaldson told me about it,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t seem to have done the fishing much harm.’

  ‘Likely not. I’ve noticed,’ he said, ‘a pool can be netted once and the lies are filled up again as quick as you like, but if it’s poached again it’ll not fish worth a damn for the rest of the season. But that’s by the by. Then, just a day or two after the poachers, there was police a’ o’er the place and searching the river bank. Then they was gone again and now, I’m telled, there’s just the one policeman, no’ long out o’ the primary school, still asking questions and unsettling folk. There’s none of the locals knows what’s up, or if they know they’re no’ telling. I said to Jeannie that you’d ken what it was about for sure.’ He filled my glass again and sat back, waiting.

  The story was bound to do the rounds shortly, possibly in a highly garbled version. I guessed that it would do Tony’s investigation little harm if the true background became public, while old Archie might have some useful facts to contribute. I gave him a brief account of the hard facts, leaving out all speculation although I had no doubt that the shrewd old chap would see as well as I did, or better, most of the implications.