Death of a Charming Man (6 page)

The two women went outside and then Betty began to scream, for Jock Kennedy was rolling up his sleeves and saying, ‘It’s time you had a thrashing.’

The dancers began to crowd out and soon a circle was formed around the two men, the women crying and screaming that Peter would be killed.

Jock moved in, his great fists swinging. Peter dodged every blow, moving like lightning, while Jock lumbered around, swinging punches. Then Peter’s foot shot out in a karate kick and the kick landed fairly and squarely and with great force on Jock Kennedy’s balls. He let out a groan and rolled over, retching, on the ground.

‘You asked for it,’ said Peter lightly, and surrounded by a coterie of admiring and excited women, he went back into the dance-hall.

Heather Baxter moved slowly out of the shadows, her little face white. Her best party dress fluttering in the pale light, she moved away from the community hall in the direction of home, as light and silent as a moth, her feet making no sound on the grass.

Priscilla received a phone call from Susan Daviot right after she had learned that Hamish Macbeth had been seen having dinner with Sophy the night before.

‘It’s quait near Craigallen,’ fluted Mrs Daviot. ‘Ever so naice and a reel snip, Priscilla. I have the aid conference today at the town hall, but if you and Hamish would like to see it, ai’ll give you the instructions.’

Priscilla took them down. She had no intention of doing anything about seeing another house. Why irritate Hamish further?

But when she replaced the receiver her father came into the office and stood watching her, rocking a little on his heels. ‘How did you get on at the Frasers’ last night?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ said Priscilla. ‘Pleasant evening.’

‘Was John Fraser there?’

‘Yes, he was home for a few days.’

‘Now that’s a fellow you should be thinking about. Successful stockbroker. When I think that my only daughter should be even contemplating throwing herself away on a layabout of a Highlander –’

‘That’s enough,’ said Priscilla sharply. ‘Who solved all those cases which baffled Strath-bane? Who …?’

‘And who is such a lazy poacher that he refuses promotion?’

‘Hamish will be a chief superintendent one of these days.’

‘Rubbish!’

Priscilla picked up her notes and made for the door. ‘Stop criticizing Hamish, Pa, it doesn’t have the slightest effect on me.’

But it did. Somehow, she found herself driving to the police station, more determined than ever to shake Hamish out of this village and into success.

Hamish was feeding his hens. His face lit up with all the old gladness when he saw her, and then a shuttered look came over his eyes when they fell on the notes in her hand.

‘You’ve found another house,’ he said.

‘Look, it wouldn’t do any harm to look at it, Hamish. Enjoy your dinner last night?’

‘Aye, it was grand.’

‘As your fiancée, I feel I should ask you your intentions towards Sophy Bisset.’

‘My intentions are about evening the score. She asked me out, not the other way round, and since you had gone off to Inverness without even phoning …’

‘I did phone, but you weren’t back. What did you find out?’

‘It seems the owner of Craigallen is a wife-beater.’

‘And you know that for a fact?’

‘Not exactly.’

Priscilla sighed. ‘Let’s just look at this house, Hamish. We want somewhere decent to bring up our children.’

His eyes gleamed with malice. ‘Aye, children would be fine. Know anything about how to go about getting some, Priscilla?’

‘Hamish! Are you coming to see this house or not?’

‘On one condition, we call in at Drim on the road back.’

‘Why?’

‘Jock Kennedy’s running an illegal pub at the back of his shop. Now I know about it, I’ve got to put a stop to it.’

‘All right.’

‘I’ll drive, as we’re going on police business sometime today. Down, Towser,’ for Towser was standing on his hind legs with his muddy paws on Priscilla’s skirt.

‘He doesn’t bother me,’ said Priscilla. ‘We’ll take him with us.’

Hamish felt weak at the knees. It was the occasional contrast between Priscilla’s cool beauty and her lack of concern at being pawed by the smelly and doting Towser that made him fall in love with her all over again.

He pushed Towser aside and pulled her into his arms, but she said, ‘Your neighbour’s watching us.’ He felt his spirits plunge again. He could not have given a damn at that moment who was watching them. He wished with all his heart that Priscilla would lose her reserve. He had a sudden vivid memory of Willie Lamont when he was engaged to Lucia, hugging and kissing her and then noticing a group of grinning villagers. He had said something to the beautiful Lucia and she had laughed and put an arm about his waist and, with her head on his shoulder, they had gone into the restaurant. He began to become very angry indeed with Priscilla. He
deserved
someone a bit warmer and less managing. Priscilla sensed his change of mood as she climbed into the Land Rover. She had an impulse to put her hand on his arm, to say, ‘Let’s forget it,’ but she remembered her father’s angry and contemptuous face and remained silent.

As they were approaching Craigallen, Priscilla said, ‘Care for another look, Hamish?’

He shook his head, but as they were driving slowly past, he saw Mrs Hendry in the garden and slowed to a stop. ‘Well, maybe, just a quick look around the outside.’

As soon as Priscilla saw Mrs Hendry, she realized the reason for Hamish’s odd enthusiasm to see a house he loathed. She wanted to tell him to forget it, but Mrs Hendry was already rising to her feet from weeding a flower-bed. ‘How nice to see you again,’ she said to Hamish. ‘Come into the house. I was just about to make a cup of tea.’

Priscilla opened her mouth to protest but Hamish had leaped forward. ‘I would chust love the cup of tea,’ he chattered, following Mrs Hendry into the house and not even looking round to see if Priscilla was following them.

‘I was upset at the state of the garden,’ said Mrs Hendry. ‘You can’t get good workers these days. Is there any hope you will buy the house?’ She gave an awkward little laugh. ‘My husband thinks it’s all my fault that we can’t sell the place, but there you are, that’s men for you. Always need someone to blame.’

‘Isn’t that the case?’ agreed Hamish, avoiding Priscilla’s eye. ‘Why, the number o’ cases of wife-beating I’ve seen because the man has to take any bad luck out on the woman.’

‘Really, Mr Macbeth,’ said Mrs Hendry. ‘I hope you are not suggesting my husband beats me!’

Hamish raised his hands in horror. ‘Did I say such a thing? Och, no, it’s just that I am a policeman, Mrs Hendry.’

‘Really?’ She fiddled noisily with the cups.

‘And the hell some women put up with, you chust wouldna’ believe. And when I’ve said to them, “Take the man to court,” they chust look at me blankly and say, “He’s done nothing wrong. Besides, I’ve got the children.” And there
are
the children growing up warped and miserable.’

Mrs Hendry dropped the kettle. Boiling water spilled all over the kitchen floor.

Priscilla took a cloth from the draining-board. ‘No, leave it,’ said Mrs Hendry shrilly. ‘Leave it! I have not been sleeping well lately and my nerves are bad. I am sorry. But you had better go.’

‘Come along, Hamish,’ said Priscilla. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to help you clear up this mess, Mrs Hendry?’

She shook her head.

Hamish and Priscilla went silently outside. As they drove off, Hamish cleared his throat and said, ‘Nothing can be done unless she wishes it done.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Priscilla. ‘Turn off here to the left, Hamish. The house we want to see is called Haven. A few hundred yards along on the right. The owners are Mr and Mrs Peterman.’

Hamish parked outside. The house was low and square, built, he guessed, sometime in the thirties. The garden was neat with regimented flowers and plants, evenly spaced, as if the distances between them had been measured by a ruler.

It was a one-storey house, the roof slate, the walls pebble-dashed, and the door had a top pane of stained glass. Priscilla rang the imitation ship’s bell outside the door. A thin, nervous woman answered it. Her shoulders were hunched and her arms were hanging straight down and her head was jutting forward, as if someone had thrust a coat-hanger into her sweater. She had a long fringe down to her eyebrows and slate-coloured eyes stared out from under it. She was wearing skin-tight jeans and baseball boots.

‘Good morning,’ said Priscilla. ‘We have come to see the house. Mrs Peterman?’

‘Yes.’ The woman held out a hand in welcome. The skin was red and glazed and the knuckles swollen.

‘I am Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, and this is Hamish Macbeth, my fiance.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’ She had a slight Yorkshire accent. ‘I’ll take you around,’ she said. ‘There’s one thing I will say, this house is always clean. You could eat off the floor. We’ll start with the lounge.’

The lounge, of which she was obviously very proud, contained a mushroom-coloured, three-piece suite which looked as if it had never been sat on. Despite the days of hair oil being long gone, both chairs and sofa were decorated with antimacassars. An electric fire of fake logs decorated the hearth in front of a pink-tiled fireplace. There was a low coffee-table in front of the sofa set about with coasters decorated with flamenco dancers. Against one wall was a hi-fi unit, and over the fireplace, a picture of a mountain scene painted by an amateur, all eye-hurting colours and peculiar perspective. The air was cold and stale. ‘And now the dining room,’ said Mrs Peterman, charging out, her shoulders hunched and her arms straight out like a character in a cheap cartoon where the animator had been trying to save on animation.

Priscilla and Hamish stood together, looking at a long dining-table surrounded by ladderback chairs with petit-point cushions in such vile colours that Hamish suspected Mrs Peterman had been responsible for them. There was a side-board of the kind called Swedish, a depressingly geometric thing. Outside, the wind of Sutherland rose in its usual violent, unheralded way, making this box of a place appear to Hamish a temporary excrescence on the Highland landscape of moorland and mountain which lay beyond the ‘picture windows’.

‘Don’t you have the central heating?’ he said, looking around.

‘We have electric-storage heaters,’ said Mrs Peterman, ‘but we only use the heaters in winter. Too much heat makes you soft. The kitchen’s through here behind the dining room.’

The kitchen was full of those gleaming white units bought from a Do-It-Yourself shop. The floor of black-and-white linoleum tiles shone brightly enough to hurt the eyes. A square plastic-topped table and four metal kitchen chairs with plastic seats dominated the centre. ‘We’ll be taking the fridge and the cooker,’ said Mrs Peterman. Priscilla was for once at a loss for anything to say. She wanted to escape. But there were still the bedrooms to see, two of them, one single and one double. The double bedroom had twin beds, narrow and rigid, separated by a bedside table which held a large Bible. On the wall above the beds was a text: THOU GOD SEEST ME!

‘The guest bedroom,’ said Mrs Peterman, throwing open another door. They both looked bleakly at a cell of a room.

‘Well, that’s all very nice,’ said Priscilla brightly. ‘We’ll let you know. We have several other places to see.’

‘You’ll not see one better than this,’ she said. ‘We’ve just put it on the market. Not like them at Craigallen. They’ve had that place up for sale for a year.’

Hamish hesitated on the doorstep ‘Charming woman, Mrs Hendry.’

‘Oh, her? The things that woman puts up with.’

‘What things?’

Her mouth closed like a trap. ‘I do not discuss my neighbours.’

‘Well, that’s that,’ said Hamish with a sigh of relief as he drove off. ‘Don’t tell me you want to live in a place like that, Priscilla.’

‘No, it was pretty dire,’ she said. ‘But Craig-allen is all right, Hamish.’

‘A bad house,’ said Hamish firmly. ‘Let’s go to Drim.’

‘Do you know,’ said Priscilla, ‘that in all the time I’ve lived up here, I’ve never been to Drim. I’ve heard it’s a dead-alive sort of place.’

‘Aye, it’s all of that.’

They drove down towards Drim. Below them they could see the black sheen of water on the loch, that thin sea loch which lay between the towering walls of the mountains where nothing grew in the scree on the flanks except an occasional stunted tree. As they climbed down from the car, the air was heavy and still. Either the wind had suddenly dropped, thought Priscilla, or Drim was so protected from the elements that hardly a breath of air stirred the black waters of the loch.

‘Why would anyone want to live here?’ asked Priscilla, looking around.

Hamish shrugged. ‘Why would anyone want to live in a place like Strathbane either, Priscilla? You’d best wait here. I’ll see Jock on my own.’

After Hamish had disappeared into the shop, the women began to emerge from the community hall after their exercise class. They stopped short at the sight of Priscilla standing beside the police Land Rover. She was wearing a short blue skirt of soft wool and a short-sleeved wool sweater. A white cashmere cardigan was draped about her shoulders. Her long legs in sheer stockings ended in low-heeled, tan leather court shoes. The women huddled together and stared at her from the top of her smooth blonde head to the tips of her shoes.

‘What’s someone like that doing here?’ asked Betty Baxter harshly.

‘Maybe she’s come tae see Peter,’ said Nancy Macleod, voicing all their worries.

‘In a polis car?’ demanded the hairdresser, Alice MacQueen.

Priscilla saw them watching her and smiled tentatively. There were no answering smiles, only eyes as hard as Scottish pebbles.

Inside the shop, Hamish was confronting Jock Kennedy, who had been summoned from the back premises by his wife, Ailsa. ‘Look, Jock,’ said Hamish, ‘I know you are running a sort of pub in the back there after hours, and it will chust not do.’

Jock scowled ferociously. ‘Who telt ye?’

‘It doesn’t matter. You’ve got to stop it.’

‘You cannae stop me from having a few friends round.’

‘No, and I suggest you make it that. If Strath-bane heard about it and crashed in here one night, how would things look for me? I am not booking you, Jock, nor am I asking to have a look-see. Chust make sure you’re doing nothing illegal in future.’

‘You should not be bothering an honest man like me,’ said Jock. ‘It’s that Sassenach you should be after.’

‘What’s he done?’

‘He’s a dirty fighter. He kicked me in the balls.’

Ailsa gave a shrill laugh. ‘It was self-defence. Hear this, Macbeth. It wass at the ceilidh. Himself here gets them to call Peter out fur a dram and as soon as Peter appears, Jock challenges him to a fight. Going to beat him to a pulp, he wass.’ Ailsa laughed again. ‘Well, you got your comeuppance, so leave Peter Hynd alone.’