Death of a Charming Man (11 page)

Heather had put a frying-pan on the stove and was frying bacon and eggs.

There was a knock at the door. ‘I’ll get it,’ said Heather quickly.

Then they could hear Blair’s heavy voice, ‘I’m just going to have another word with your faither.’

‘Begone!’ said Heather. ‘This is a house of mourning and you are harassing and tormenting a poor child.’

‘Aw, come on, it’s your da I want tae see.’

‘I see the gentleman of the press have arrived,’ came Heather’s voice, ‘and I will be telling them how you victimized a child of twelve!’

‘Och, I’ll be back.’ Blair’s voice, thick with disgust and anger. ‘Hamish Macbeth’s in there.’

‘Mr Macbeth is a friend.’ Then came the slamming of the door. Heather returned sedately to the cooker and flipped the eggs.

‘I think I’d better be going, Harry. You’d best get one of the women to help you with Heather.’

‘I don’t need anyone,’ said Heather. ‘Da and I are best left alone.’

Hamish went out, puzzled. He had never met anyone like Heather before. He wondered if Priscilla could make anything of her.

He decided that instead of going to the community hall to interview the villagers himself, he would start off with the hairdresser, Alice MacQueen, and find out if Betty had said anything. Alice MacQueen had already suffered being interviewed by Blair and it took Hamish some time to soothe her ruffled feathers. She was a faded woman with small features and a pinched mouth. Her dark-brown hair was worn in the old-fashioned chrysanthemum style she inflicted on her customers and highlighted with streaks of silver.

Her ‘shop’ was in her converted front room and smelled of chemicals and hot hair. ‘What I am trying to find out from you, you being obviously a verra sensitive and noticing sort of lady, is if Betty Baxter, when she had her hair done, seemed any different from usual.’

‘Well, she talked a lot, but then she always did.’ Alice wrinkled her brow. ‘But she looked … triumphant. She looked as if there was some secret she was hugging. Maybe found herself another fellow.’

‘Not Peter Hynd?’

She snorted. ‘Him? He’s long gone. Anyway, he wasn’t interested in Betty. She ran after him like a great cow.’

Hamish asked more questions and then gave up. The one satisfaction he had was that this murder investigation would lead to finding out where Peter Hynd was. Although he had left the village, the police would want to ask him if he had any idea who might have killed Betty.

He was about to go up to Jimmy Macleod’s house when Jimmy Anderson came running up just as Hamish was leaving the hair-dresser’s. ‘Looks like an accident after all,’ he said.

‘What? What about that bruise on her neck?’

‘Blair’s jist got that out o’ her man. That wee Heather tells Blair her father has something to say. Seems Harry skelped her one with a half-frozen cod on the back of the neck yesterday when he saw she’d been back to the hairdresser to get blonded.’

‘But what broke her neck then?’

‘It was a freak accident. It was the way she fell among the rocks. She’s got a broken arm as well. Pathologist made a second examination before they took the body away.’

‘Has he gone? I want a word with him.’

‘He’s gone and everyone else is packing up.’

‘Just like that? Okay, so Harry hit her with a cod, but couldn’t someone have pushed her deliberately – pushed her hard on to the rocks?’

‘No use trying to talk me into seeing it as murder. I jist want tae get to the pub afore they close. Try Blair.’

‘Have better success talking to Harry’s cod.’

Hamish went up to the row of police cars. Blair was laughing uproariously at something one of the policewomen had said. His piggy eyes fastened on Hamish and he scowled. ‘Jist as well it was an accident, Hamish, or there’d be an inquiry about why ye were neglecting your duties and had the radio switched off.’

‘You mean like Dolan’s inquiry?’

‘None of your lip!’

‘Look,’ said Hamish earnestly, ‘why are you all so eager to accept the diagnosis of accident? The woman was obviously going to meet someone. She had a phone call, she got her hair bleached, and she was all dressed up.’

‘Och, who can tell what goes on in the crazy minds of these teuchters,’ said Blair, who hailed from Glasgow and considered all Highlanders barbarians. ‘I’m telling ye, it was an accident plain and simple.’

‘At least find out where Peter Hynd went and ask him some questions.’

‘The case is closed. It’s different fur you layabouts. We’ve got murder and mayhem daily in Strathbane.’

Hamish made a disgusted sound and went back to the Baxters’ house. The press had gone, the policeman had gone. He knocked at the door. It was opened a crack and Heather’s grey eyes peered out. She saw Hamish and opened the door wide. ‘Da’s gone to bed,’ she said.

‘Heather, I don’t want to distress you further, but what’s all this about your father hitting your mother with a codfish?’

‘It wass yesterday,’ she said in a singsong voice, and he was forcibly reminded of a good child reciting poetry at a school function. ‘She wass standing by the cooker and they had a quarrel. That’s when it happened.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘Da thought he would get into trouble, but I told him it wass better to tell the truth.’

Hamish eyed her narrowly. ‘You wouldn’t make up a story to protect your father, would you, Heather, and find you were protecting a murderer instead?’

‘I don’t lie,’ she said fiercely.

Hamish went back to the police Land Rover and sat in it, moodily staring down at the loch. He felt that if he did not investigate this case further, it would nag at him until the day he died. Yes, he was lazy, but the taking of human life was the ultimate crime and he could not believe Betty’s death had been an accident.

He was due a three weeks’ holiday. His bank account was showing a modest sum of money. He had planned to take Priscilla on holiday. He struck the steering wheel. But what would the fair Priscilla say when he asked her? What would she think as a vision of the intimacy of a hotel bedroom rose in her cold mind? But he made up his mind. He would drive back and ask her. If she refused, then he would use the holiday to find Peter Hynd.

He drove out of Drim and straight to the Tommel Castle Hotel. There had been a special reception and dinner for the new guests. When he went in, they were in the bar, Priscilla among them in a flame-coloured silk dress, laughing and talking with two of the men. The men were worldly, expensive- and sophisticated-looking in their evening dress. He felt suddenly gawky and ill at ease. Priscilla looked up and saw him, and the laughter left her face and her eyes took on a guarded look. She walked up to him. ‘Hamish?’

‘Can we talk?’

‘I’m very busy,’ she said coolly. ‘Oh, come into the office.’

They walked into the hotel office. ‘Now, Hamish,’ said Priscilla briskly.

‘It iss not the business meeting,’ retorted Hamish huffily. ‘I’ve decided to take a three weeks’ holiday, and I thought we could just pack up and go somewhere.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Why not?’

‘What were you doing driving Sophy Bisset back from Inverness? And I gather you had a splendid time having lunch and going to watch a dirty movie.’

‘Priscilla, I told you I was going to Inverness. I happened to run into Sophy, that was all. Then I heard about the death at Drim and dropped her at the bus stop at Bonar Bridge. No doubt the Currie sisters reported it all.’

‘Not to mention Sophy herself.’

‘I’m telling you, there wass nothing to it.’ His Highland accent was becoming more sibilant, a sign that he was upset. ‘Let’s not quarrel. Let’s talk about this holiday.’

‘I cannot possibly go off on holiday now. We are too busy.’

‘Priscilla, you’ll need to chuck the hotel work when we’re married.’

‘Why? We’ll need the money,’ she said brutally. ‘Have you any idea what a dress like this costs?’ Priscilla knew she was behaving badly, and like most hurt people was taking a vindictive pleasure in it. ‘When we are married,
if
we are married, then I shall get Pa to pay me a salary. I do the work of two, sometimes more. Then there’s the gift shop to run.’

‘I have no intention of living off my wife’s earnings,’ said Hamish stiffly.

‘Why am I so different?’ she asked sweetly. ‘You mooch off everyone else in Lochdubh.’

He looked at her with sudden hatred. ‘You,’ he said evenly, ‘are a thoroughly nasty bitch!’

Hamish turned on his heel and walked out.

Priscilla stood for a long moment after he had gone and then sat down at the desk and burst into tears.

‘Hamish! Hamish!’ He turned round in the car park. Sophy came running towards him. ‘Everything all right?’ she asked.

He looked at her with loathing. ‘Go and jump in the loch,’ he said rudely. ‘Women! They should all be strangled at birth!’

He climbed into the Land Rover and drove off, gravel spurting out from under his wheels.

It was only when he was back in his own kitchen with only the company of Towser that he began to calm down. He could not go over and over what Priscilla had said, picking away at the hurt like a scab. In the morning he would go to Strathbane and make arrangements for his holiday.

And then he would set out to find Peter Hynd.

He went down to Strathbane the next day and obtained permission to take leave. Sergeant Macgregor over at Cnothan would cover Hamish’s beat as well as his own. That finished, Hamish returned to Lochdubh, collected Towser and took the dog over to his parents’ home in Rogart, where he shrugged off questions about his wedding date with, he thought, very clever answers. His mother sadly watched him driving off and said to her husband, ‘I don’t think our Hamish is going to marry Priscilla or anyone. He always was a picky boy.’

Hamish then returned to Lochdubh and arranged with a neighbour to take care of his hens and sheep. He had already made up his mind to go to London and see if he could trace the origins of Peter Hynd. First he would need some money. As he walked to the bank, he suddenly realized that Peter Hynd must have had some local bank he drew money from. There was no bank in Drim.

He walked in and asked to see the bank manager, a new man called Ian Donaldson. He had to wait twenty minutes. The recession had reached the north of Scotland in that the banks were calling in loans and managers were besieged by furious customers.

The bank manager rose to meet him. ‘Well, Macbeth, I hope you havenae come for a loan, for I amn’t giving any.’

‘Nothing like that,’ said Hamish. ‘That young chap, Peter Hynd, him that was over at Drim. Did he use this bank?’

‘Aye, from time to time.’

‘Had an arrangement with you?’

‘Nothing like that. Just cashed the odd cheque for fifty pounds and paid the fee. So much plastic around these days, people don’t need cash in hand like they used to.’

‘Got any of those cheques?’

‘No, he hasn’t been in here for a few weeks, so the cheques will have already been sent on to his own bank in New Bond Street. Why? He isn’t a criminal, is he?’

‘Just following up some inquiries,’ said Hamish.

He drew out money and then hesitated outside the bank. It was a glorious early autumn day. The heather had settled down to a rusty colour and the rowan-trees were heavy with scarlet berries. The fishing boats were mirrored in the loch. Smoke rose in straight lines from chimneys. The air was full of homely noises: women calling to each other as they hung out the washing, snatches of radio, the grinding of a rusty winch down at the harbour, the chanting voices of the children in the schoolroom reciting the multiplication table.

As he surveyed the scene, he had a longing to forget about useless Peter Hynd and stay in Lochdubh and laze the days away, get in a bit of fishing, read, and watch television. But as he viewed the loch, a pleasure launch came into view, the Tommel Castle Hotel’s latest acquisition. It was full of guests and he could make out Priscilla’s blonde hair.

With a little sigh, he went back to the police station and began to pack.

*    *   *

His cousin, Rory Grant, a reporter on a national daily newspaper, was not amused to find Hamish complete with suitcase on his doorstep. ‘This isn’t a hotel, Hamish,’ he said. ‘I could have had a woman here.’

‘But you haven’t,’ said the unrepentant Hamish, walking in and putting his suitcase in the middle of the floor. ‘I’m only here for a wee bit, and if you’re any help to me, I’ll let you in on a good story.’

‘Like what?’

Hamish told him about Peter Hynd.

‘Sounds a bit far-fetched to me,’ said Rory. ‘If you want free board, just say so.’

‘No, I mean it. I really want to find him.’

‘Okay, your room’s through here. Look, I think I’m on to a sure thing tonight, Hamish. There’s this woman reporter on the
Sun
… well, you know how it is. I’m taking her out for dinner and I think I might score. We’re going to a restaurant in South Ken, Bernie’s Bistro. I’ve got to go into the office, so I’ll see if there’s anything on Peter Hynd on file. If you drop in at the restaurant at eight, say, I’ll give you anything I’ve got, but don’t stay, for heaven’s sake. Take yourself off and get some fish and chips or something.’

‘I’ll do that,’ said Hamish, suddenly feeling more cheerful. ‘I’ll start off at his bank in New Bond Street.’

‘How’s Priscilla?’

‘Chust fine.’

‘Did well for yourself, Hamish. Wish I could marry into a rich family.’

Hamish paused in the act of opening his suitcase. ‘I haff no intention of using my wife’s money or her family’s money.’

‘Bollocks. Get real, as our American cousins say. Wake up and smell the coffee. Victorian values don’t apply in a recession. I’m telling you, if I get a rich wife, I’ll chuck reporting and sit on my bum pretending to write the great novel while wifie pays the bills without one qualm of conscience.’

‘Aye, well, London’s corrupted you. I will do fine if you want to get off.’

‘I’ll get your door keys first,’ said Rory. ‘You know where everything is. Don’t forget, Bernie’s Bistro. Come out of South Ken tube, turn right, and it’s a few yards along once you cross the intersection.’