Hamish Macbeth 20 (2004) - Death of a Poison Pen (10 page)

“That’s all?” Hamish looked at him in irritation. “Old people fainting and screaming?”

“Leave me alone, laddie, and take your young lady away.” The seer got to his feet and began to shuffle towards the back premises.

“But have you
heard
anything?” called Hamish.

Angus turned. “You’ll let that one”—he pointed at Jenny—“get away like all the rest. You’re doomed to being a lonely man, Hamish.”

“Come on, Jenny,” said Hamish. “What a waste of time and trout.”

Outside in the sunshine, Jenny clutched his arm. “I think he really saw something.”

“Och, he’s an old fraud.”

“Where are you going now?” asked Jenny, scurrying to keep up with Hamish’s long strides.

“I’m going to call on the Currie sisters. They might have heard something.”

“Can I come?” pleaded Jenny.

“I don’t see why not.”

Unfortunately for Jenny, the Currie sisters had found out what thongs looked like. Dr. Brodie, aware of the strait-laced sensibilities of the villagers, confined the magazines in his waiting room to conservative publications like
Horse & Hound, Country Life, Scottish Field
, and
People’s Friend
. But Nessie Currie had been to the dentist’s in Inverness the day before and had perused the magazines in that waiting room. They were of the girlie variety, full of detailed descriptions of orgasms, how to get your man, and sexual practices which the Currie spinsters had naively believed belonged solely in the brothel. There were also advertisements of saucy underwear.

They were remarkably alike, thought Jenny as two pairs of beady eyes behind thick glasses focussed on her. She was unfortunate in that the Currie sisters never let a thought go unsaid.

“I would have thought it very uncomfortable to wear, to wear,” said Jessie, who, like Browning’s thrush, had an irritating way of saying everything twice over.

“Are you talking to me?” asked Jenny.

“Who else? Who else?”

“Couldn’t believe our eyes. Catapult, indeed,” said Nessie.

Jenny’s face flamed red.

“We saw it illustrated in a dirty magazine,” said Nessie. “You’ll damage yourself wearing something like that. You go down to Strathbane to the draper’s in the main street and get yourself some respectable knickers with elastic at the knee.”

“Could we get down to business?” said Hamish crossly. “I have two murders to solve.”

“So why aren’t you solving them?” demanded Nessie. “Instead of going around with young lassies.”

“Young lassies,” echoed Jessie.

“I have to ask everyone if they’ve heard anything,” said Hamish, who was used to dealing with the Currie sisters. “Now, did either of you know Miss McAndrew or Miss Beattie?”

“Both,” they chorused.

“So tell me about them.”

“Miss McAndrew was a bit bossy,” said Nessie. “She had the reputation of being a good schoolteacher. She came to one of our church concerts last year. Miss Beattie, well, we thought her a respectable body. We didn’t know she had been…er…romancing the postman.”

“How did you hear that?”

“The women in Patel’s were all talking about it. So Jessie and me, we decided that Miss McAndrew was in love with the postman and jealous of Miss Beattie, so she strung her up.”

Hamish’s glance flicked to the new digital television set. The Currie sisters had obviously been exposed to a recent diet of American films.

“So who killed Miss McAndrew?” he asked.

“Why, postman Billy, of course. Now that we’ve solved your case for you, you can leave us alone.”

“That’s very clever of you,” said Jenny suddenly. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Both sisters beamed on her. She looked so young and pretty and respectable in her new anorak and trousers. “The only trouble is,” said Jenny, “that Pat Mallone told me that Billy had an alibi. He was down in Strathbane at an army reunion the night Miss Beattie was murdered.”

“So what? So what?” demanded Jessie. “Where was he the day Miss McAndrew was murdered, when she was murdered?”

“Oh, of course you’re right,” said Jenny. “What do you think of Billy?”

“I don’t hold with adultery,” said Nessie. “But mind you, that wife of his is a fiend and Billy aye had the reputation of being a kind and decent man. If I were you, I’d be talking to Penny Roberts’s parents. Now that they know Miss McAndrew was writing those dreadful letters, they might come out with something about her that they didn’t realise before.”

“We’ll do that. What a good idea!” enthused Jenny.

“You know Mr. Blakey at the old folks’ club?” said Hamish.

“Senior
citizens
,” corrected Jessie. “He rightly came to us for advice. At the beginning, we vetted the videos for him in case there would be anything nasty. But we haven’t been there for a while.”

Both Jenny and Hamish rose to their feet. “You’re a good lassie,” said Jessie. “A good lassie. We hope to see you in church on Sunday, church on Sunday.”

“I’ll be there,” said Jenny with a warm smile.

The Currie sisters stood at their parlour window and watched Hamish and Jenny leave. Jenny stumbled and clutched at Hamish’s arm for support.

Nessie shook her head. “It’s that evil underwear. Enough to unbalance anyone. Do you think she’s a virgin?”

“She’d have to be, to be,” said Jessie. “I mean, it would be uncomfortable otherwise when you think—”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind,” said Nessie severely. “And you shouldn’t be thinking such thoughts. But she’s a brand to be saved from the burning. We’ll have a go at her after church on Sunday.”

I had rather take my chance that some traitors will escape detection than spread abroad a spirit of general suspicion and distrust, which accepts rumour and gossip in place of undismayed and unintimidated inquiry
.

—Learned Hand

H
amish explianed to Jenny that he could not take her to Braikie in a police vehicle, but she said cheerfully that she would follow behind him in her ‘ridiculous little car.’

Jenny’s ambition had changed. She was no longer interested in snaring Hamish Macbeth, but—remembering how much Priscilla had talked about the cases she and Hamish had solved together—in returning to London with the story about how her help had solved two murders.

Hamish just hoped Blair would not see him around with Jenny in tow. He had to admit to himself that she had a knack of getting people to warm to her.

He decided to call on Penny Roberts’s parents first. He stopped in the main street and checked a computer list of addresses, then swung the Land Rover round and headed out again towards the coast end of the town and stopped outside a row of Victorian villas. The Robertses lived in a neat house, two-storeyed, with pointed gables. He knocked at the door, guiltily aware of the small figure of Jenny behind him, realising it must look odd to bring a civilian along with him.

A dark-haired skinny woman opened the door and surveyed him. She had a thick-lipped mouth, small eyes, and an incipient moustache. Must be a friend or relative, he thought. “Police,” he said. “I wondered if I could be having a word with Mr. or Mrs. Roberts.”

“Come in,” she said, stepping back. “I’m Mrs. Roberts.”

Startled, Hamish thought that Penny must surely have inherited her stunning looks from her father, but when they were ushered into a living room, Mr. Roberts was introduced. He was also dark and skinny and very hairy. “I am Hamish Macbeth.” Hamish removed his cap and tucked it under his arm. “As this is an unofficial visit, I hope you don’t mind my friend Jenny Ogilvie joining us.”

“Not at all,” said Mrs. Roberts. “Sit down. A dreadful business, all this.”

Jenny glanced around the living room. There was a two-bar electric fire, glowing orange in front of a fireplace, blocked up with newspaper. But the furniture, like the house, was dark and Victorian with two oils of Highland landscapes hanging from walls decorated in faded wallpaper.

“This house must have been in your family a long time,” said Jenny.

“Yes, it belonged to my great-grandfather,” said Mrs. Roberts. “I was lucky in a way, if you can call it luck. My mother died a week before me and Cyril”—she nodded towards her husband—“were due to get married. Of course, we were going to stay with Mother, but the poor soul was fair gone with Alzheimer’s, so it was a blessed release.”

“Housing is so difficult these days, Mrs. Roberts,” said Jenny.

Hamish was about to interrupt her, but Mrs. Roberts smiled on Jenny and said, “Call me Mary. You’re quite right. We could never have afforded a place like this. Not then. But Cyril is doing nicely now. He’s a civil engineer with Bradley’s in Strathbane. Not at work, I can see you’re wondering. With all this going on, Cyril took a few days off.”

“Quite right,” said Jenny. “You want to be with your family at a time like this.”

Hamish cleared his throat. “Did you get any of the poison-pen letters?”

There was a brief silence. “No,” said Mary Roberts. “I mean, it turns out it was Miss McAndrew that was writing them and she was so fond of Penny that she wouldn’t attack us. I mean, after all, we’ve no guilty secrets.”

And yet, Hamish thought, I feel you’re lying. He pressed on. “Weren’t you made uneasy that the headmistress should make such a pet of your daughter?”

“We were pleased for her,” said Cyril. “I mean, Penny’s a bright girl, head and shoulders above the rest. It seemed natural to us that Miss McAndrew should take such a great interest.”

Hamish’s eyes roamed briefly around the room. There were photos of Penny everywhere: Penny as a toddler, Penny as a schoolgirl, Penny on holiday in Cornwall.

“Did you know Miss Beattie well?” asked Jenny.

“We knew her the way everyone else in Braikie knew her,” said Mary. “We chatted a bit over the counter, that sort of thing.”

“But you didn’t socialise with her?”

“No, she really isn’t in our class,” said Mary with all the simple snobbery of a small, remote village.

Hamish looked at them for a moment, puzzled. There was a secret in this room—in the air.

“Didn’t you have any inkling that Miss McAndrew was a poison-pen writer?”

“Oh, no,” said Mary. “I mean, such a respectable body! How could we dream she would do such a thing?”

Jenny spoke suddenly. “Before Penny,” she said, “who was teacher’s pet?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, before Penny, do you know who was Miss McAndrew’s favourite?”

Mary Roberts and her husband exchanged glances. “Let me see,” said Mary. “There was Jessie Briggs.”

“And is she still at school?”

“No, she left two years ago.”

“Where does she live?” asked Hamish.

“At the council houses. Highland Close. I don’t know the number.”

“Is she working?”

“I don’t know.”

Hamish asked more questions about their opinion of the late Miss McAndrew, but they did seem genuinely bewildered that the respected headmistress had been anything other than perfect.

Outside, Hamish said, “What prompted you to ask about another favourite?”

“Just an idea,” said Jenny eagerly. “I mean it stands to reason, if she’d made a pet of Penny, then she might have had other pets.”

“Clever idea,” said Hamish, and Jenny glowed. “We may as well go and see this girl and hope that she and her family weren’t so starry-eyed about Miss McAndrew.”

They drove in tandem to Highland Close. Hamish knocked at the first door and got Jessie Briggs’s address.

Followed by Jenny, he walked up the path and knocked at a front door, noticing that the paint was peeling and the front garden behind him was full of weeds. Somewhere inside, a baby cried.

The door was opened by a thin, tired-looking girl. Her blonde hair was showing an inch of dark roots. She had startlingly green eyes and Hamish guessed that made-up and dressed up, she might still attract a lot of admiring looks.

“I am PC Hamish Macbeth,” he said. “This is Jenny Ogilvie. Do you mind if we come in?”

“Yes, but be quiet. I’ve just laid the bairn down and I could do with a rest.”

She led them into a cluttered living room. Several empty bottles of Baccardi Breezer stood among film magazines on a coffee table.

“Are your parents home?” asked Hamish. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke, stale booze, and unwashed nappies.

“No, I live on my own. Unmarried mother.”

Hamish and Jenny sat down side by side on a battered sofa. Jessie picked up a wastepaper basket and shovelled empty bottles into it. “Tea?” she asked.

“No, don’t bother,” said Hamish quickly, anxious to get this interview over and get out into the fresh air.

“So is this about the murders?” asked Jessie, sitting down opposite them.

“Yes, it is,” said Hamish. “We gather you were something of a favourite with Miss McAndrew?”

“Oh, her.” Jessie shrugged thin shoulders. She lit a cigarette and blew smoke out in their direction.

“What was your experience with her?”

“Weird.”

“In what way?”

“Well, she used to ask me home and help me with my homework. Had my ma and da all excited that I was going to be a success. I was a looker then, you wouldn’t think it now.”

She rose and went over to a table by the window and shuffled through the contents of a battered shoebox and drew out a photograph. She handed it to Hamish.

“That was just after I left school.”

In the photo, Jessie’s hair was thick and brown and her figure fuller. The girl in the photograph glowed with a strong sexuality.

“Do you think Miss McAndrew was attracted to you?”

“Oh, sure.” Jessie delicately picked a piece of tobacco off her tongue. “I didnae ken about such women then. She was always stroking my hair. She said I should go to university. Then she said she was soon due to retire and she would come with me and look after me. I began to feel…threatened.”

“Did you tell your parents?”

“They wouldnae listen. “You do what she says and you’ll get somewhere,” they said. Ma works on the buses and Dad drives. They were fired up by her. I tried to tell them she was faking my exams and that when I sat my Highers, I’d be in trouble because the papers would go out to the examining board and I’d be exposed as not all that bright. Who knows? I may have done better if she hadn’t been breathing down my neck.”