Death of a Gentle Lady (11 page)

There was the sound of an explosion far below, and then flames shot up into the night sky.

He saw he was hidden by the overhang of the cliff. His arms felt as if they were about to be torn from their sockets. He kicked his boots into the soft ground of the cliff until he found footholds and felt the pressure on his arms slacken.

In the light from the flames below, he saw a rocky ledge to his left. With all the strength left in his arms, he swung himself over and fell panting on the ledge. Using tufts of grass for purchase, he swung himself back up over the top of the cliff and, taking out a powerful torch, swung it to the left and right.

Moorland stretched for miles either way. He pulled out his mobile phone and woke up Jimmy Anderson. “I’ll get the police helicopter up and we’ll search the moors,” said Jimmy. “Go back and lock yourself in.” * * *

Hamish stayed awake, listening to the sound of the police helicopter overhead. At last he could not bear the inactivity any longer and went out. The harbour was full of police cars. A forensic team was working on the burnt-out van, which had fortunately hit a large rock instead of plunging on down onto one of the houses.

James Fringley appeared beside him. “I gather you’re not who you said you were,” he said.

“No. Who told you?”

“A copper asked me which cottage had been rented to Hamish Macbeth. I gather that’s you and you’re that policeman from Lochdubh. Why are you here?”

“Headquarters has me hidden up here because some murderer is after me,” said Hamish wearily.

“Do me and everyone in this village a favour and get the hell out of it as soon as you can. There were fishing nets burnt in that shed, and that van could have killed someone.”

Hamish guessed the would-be killer had probably guessed he would search for him up on the clifftop. The back of the van had been cramped, and he had changed his position from time to time. Maybe the van had rocked a little, alerting the murderer to the fact that he was inside.

Jimmy arrived at Hamish’s cottage at six in the morning to find the policeman still awake, packed and ready to leave.

“No success,” said Jimmy. “We kept the helicopter up as long as we could but then Daviot came on the phone screaming about the cost. All we can do now is put a police guard outside your station.”

“I’ll alert the villagers,” said Hamish. “Any strange woman appearing in Lochdubh and they’ll make a citizens’ arrest. There is no need for a police guard. Do you know, I don’t think she or he will try again. I think whoever it is could possibly be mad, and made even madder with fear that I might guess something.”

“It’s up to you. What a dump this place is. Worse than Lochdubh.”

“It’s really lovely,” said Hamish. “That reminds me. I’ve a present for you.”

He took out the wood carving that looked so like Blair.

“Man, that’s grand,” said Jimmy. “Can I stick pins in it?”

Lochdubh looked reassuringly the same. As soon as he had unpacked, Hamish got into bed, joined by his cat and dog, and fell sound asleep.

He awoke in the late afternoon to find Elspeth standing over him.

“You cannae chust walk into a man’s bedroom!” he howled.

“I came to see if you were alive,” said Elspeth. “I bought you a present.”

“I don’t want a present,” said Hamish sulkily. “All I want iss a bit o’ peace.”

“Smell something?” asked Elspeth.

Hamish propped himself up on the pillows and sniffed the air. “Coffee?”

“Yes, good coffee. I bought you a percolator.”

“Have you seen Sonsie and Lugs?”

“Last time I saw them, they were strolling along the waterfront, heading for the Italian restaurant. They must be hungry.”

Hamish got out of bed and stretched and yawned. Then he realised he had not put on any pyjamas and was stark naked.

Elspeth giggled. “That’s quite a blush you’ve got, Hamish. It goes all the way—”

“Get out!” he roared.

When Hamish had washed and dressed, he found Elspeth in the kitchen. She poured him a cup of coffee.

Hamish drank a little and then smiled. “This is grand. Thank you. Now, what do I have to do for this?”

“Nothing. There’s a clampdown on reporting what happened up in Grianach. Editor’s phoned all over. Story suppressed. Unless you can think of anything, I’ve got to get back to Glasgow.”

Hamish looked at her thoughtfully. She had lit the stove. The kitchen was warm. She was wearing a chunky grey sweater over jeans, and the grey seemed to highlight the odd silvery colour of her eyes. Her hair had reverted to its usual frizzy look, which seemed to suit her better than when it was straightened.

“I may be back,” said Elspeth. “The editor of the
Highland Times
is retiring, and Matthew is taking over as editor. He’ll need a reporter.”

“Wouldn’t it seem a bit tame after the city?”

“Not with the goings-on you seem to conjure up. I’m highland to the bone, and I don’t really seem to fit in in Glasgow.

Then the photographer I have with me, Billy, is a complete lout. All he does is sneer at this place, and the more he sneers at it, the more I realise how much I love it.”

“I was sorry to hear about you being jilted,” said Hamish. Elspeth had been left at the church on her wedding day. She had been about to marry a fellow reporter but he had run off and left her. “Were you very hurt?”

“I was angry and then I was relieved,” said Elspeth. “And while we’re on the subject of jilted people, how are you getting on with Priscilla?”

“I cancelled the engagement,” said Hamish. “Not her. I havenae seen much o’ her. She’s traipsing around the hills and heather with that Irishman.”

“Not any more. He’s left, and she’s too busy rehearsing her part with that writer. I’m still amazed you actually got around to proposing marriage to someone, Hamish. That Russian, I mean.”

He sighed. “I thought I was doing the right thing, Elspeth. I did it to keep my police station. And the idea was that we’d divorce after a while.”

“It’s wonderful how you got permission to marry her so easily. They’re clamping down on these arranged marriages. There was a woman down in England who charged a hefty fee to marry foreigners. When they caught up with her, she’d married five and not a divorce paper in sight.”

Hamish suddenly remembered the day he had bought an engagement ring to present to Elspeth, only to find out that she had promised to marry her fellow reporter.

He had bought Irena another ring. He wondered what had happened to it. Inspector Anna had arranged to have the body flown back to Moscow for burial. Why she had persuaded her bosses to go to that expense, he did not know.

He suddenly decided to take the plunge. “Excuse me a minute,” he said. He went into the bedroom and took the ring in its little box out of his bedside table. His heart was hammering.

Just as he walked into the kitchen, the door opened and Priscilla walked in.

Hamish stuffed the box in his pocket and shouted, “Damn it, don’t you ever knock?”

“I’m off,” said Elspeth hurriedly.

“I’ll come with you,” said Priscilla. “It seems I am not welcome.”

Say something, yelled a voice in Hamish’s head. But he stood there, frozen, as they both walked off.

He walked along to the Italian restaurant to be told that his animals had been fed and then had gone away.

By asking people on the waterfront, he learned that they had been spotted heading for Angela Brodie’s cottage.

Angela opened the door to him. “I’ve sent them home,” she said. “The poor things seemed so hungry that I fed them first.”

“Angela, they’ll be as fat as butter. They’ve already been stuffing themselves at the Italian restaurant.”

“Oh, well, they say that pets take after their owner, and you always were a moocher, Hamish. I suppose you want a coffee.”

“No, I do not. I haff the verra good coffeemaker. Elspeth gave it to me.”

“Did she, now. You ought to marry that lassie, Hamish.”

Hamish stared down at her, his mouth slightly open and a vacant expression on his face.

“What’s up?” asked Angela. “You look as if you’ve been struck by lightning.”

“I’ve been struck with a flash o’ the blindingly obvious,” said Hamish.

He turned and ran to the police station, got into the Land Rover, and sped off to the Tommel Castle Hotel.

He erupted into the manager’s office. “Where’s Elspeth?” he asked. “Which room?”

“Oh, she’s gone. Left about ten minutes ago. Coffee?”

Hamish slumped down in a chair in the office.

“Why not?” he said.

When he left the manager’s office, he stood in the reception wondering whether to chase after Elspeth. But that sudden desire to ask her to marry him had faded. He sighed. Perhaps when this case was solved—if it ever was solved—he might take a trip down to Glasgow.

“Got over your bad temper?” asked Priscilla, interrupting his thoughts.

“Sorry about that,” said Hamish. “This case is getting to me. Murderers are usually stupid and have nearly got away with it before because they were lucky amateurs and the last people you would suspect. But this one isn’t an amateur. The only amateur attempt was that wire on the stairs.”

“I’ve heard weird and wonderful stories about what happened up at Grianach.”

“Still no odd strange woman booked in here?”

“No, only Polish maids. Do you know the
Northern Times
has brought out a free Polish newspaper?”

“Maybe the
Highland Times
will do the same.”

“Not enough up here as yet. Have dinner with me and tell me about it.”

Hamish hesitated. Priscilla smiled. “Sonsie and Lugs will be fine. Gosh, it’s like dealing with a man with a possessive wife waiting at home.”

“All right, then. That would be grand.”

Over dinner, Hamish told her all about the happenings in Grianach. When he had finished, Priscilla said, “You must still be in shock. Have you considered that?”

Hamish stared at her for a long moment. Was he? Was that what had prompted his sudden desire to propose to Elspeth? And it was hard to think of Elspeth with the cool beauty of Priscilla facing him across the table.

“I might be,” he said.

“I called on your mother the other day,” said Priscilla. “I was over in Rogart and thought I would look her up. You should go home a bit more often, Hamish.”

“I’ll try. I bought presents for her in Grianach. Oh, I’ve one for you. Ma was so upset about the wedding. She made me feel ashamed, particularly when it got out that Irena was a prostitute.”

“So what happens now?”

“I think I’ll spend the next few days writing down everything I know. They might give me time off. I’m tempted to go down to London and talk to Kylie Gentle. I can’t ignore the fact that it must, somehow, have something to do with that family.”

Chapter Eleven

I think for my part that one half of the nation is mad—and the other half not very sound.

—Tobias Smollett

Hamish was granted leave. Daviot seemed relieved that he would be out of the way. Jimmy said that the van had been stolen from outside a croft near Grianach. He supplied Hamish with Kylie Gentle’s address in London but warned him that he was on his own. He would need to cover his own expenses.

Jimmy had a further bit of astonishing news. Blair was back on the job and sober. “He’s found God,” said Jimmy. “He keeps a Bible on his desk and lectures us all on our sins. He was a nasty bully when he was drunk and now he’s even nastier. The man’s a right religious maniac.”

“Won’t last long,” said Hamish cynically. “One setback and he’ll be screaming that God doesn’t exist and straight down to the pub.”

Anxious not to leave his pets too long, Hamish drove to Inverness and took an early plane to London. Kylie and her husband lived in a flat in St. George’s Mansions in Gloucester Road in Kensington.

He took the tube to the Gloucester Road tube station and walked along until he reached St. George’s Mansions. He rang the bell marked gentle, hoping his journey wouldn’t turn out to be a waste of time with them gone on holiday somewhere. But Kylie herself answered on the intercom. When Hamish announced himself, there was a little gasp of surprise, and then he was buzzed in.

Kylie, looking like an elegant stick insect, stood in the doorway to greet him. “What’s happened now?” she asked crossly. “The police have already been round asking if any of us have been near a place called Grianach. I told them we’d never even heard of it. Come in.”

Hamish, feeling uncomfortable in all the glory of his best suit, collar, and tie, followed her into a pleasant living room.

“It’s got nothing to do with that,” he said. “I can’t help feeling that something happened at your family reunion that maybe gave Irena the idea she could blackmail someone apart from Mark.”

“Sit down,” said Kylie. “Didn’t we go through that all before?”

“I thought maybe you might have had time to think of something.”

Hamish studied her covertly. Could she be the murderer? Could she be trying to protect someone?

Her face was Botoxed into expressionlessness. She stared at him for a long moment. Then she said, “It was the usual business, my mother-in-law demanding we all run around her, hinting that if she did not have the correct amount of grovel, she’d leave her money elsewhere. Mark was oiling about. Then he suddenly got furious. He’d got the news that she planned to change her will. He was talking a lot to Irena. Then he suddenly seemed to get cheerful again. Oh, he made one odd comment. He said, ‘There’s a bastard in every family and a skeleton in every cupboard, isn’t there, Auntie?’ Mrs. Gentle went quite white with rage.”

“I think I might pay a call on him,” said Hamish. “Where is he?”

“I’ll write it down for you. It’s a garage in Peckham.”

Hamish looked up the address in a battered old copy of the London A to Z he had brought with him. He found the nearest tube station on the map and set off.

It was a cold, dusty, windy day. London seemed much dirtier than he remembered.

When he found the garage, it was closed. He asked around and was told it had been closed for the last week. No one knew where the workers were.

He pulled out his phone and asked Kylie where Mark Gentle lived, hoping it would be somewhere nearby, but Kylie gave him an address in East India Dock.

It took him an hour and a half to get there. Mark’s flat was in the middle of what had been damned as Yuppie Town.

Nothing but flats for the City workers. No shops or pubs or churches.

Mark lived in a small converted Victorian warehouse fronting onto one of the old docks. Hamish rang the bell, but there was no reply. He rang all the bells until a woman answered, and he said, “Police. Let me in. I’m looking for Mark Gentle.”

She buzzed him in. He mounted the stairs to Mark’s flat and hammered on the door. He could hear the sound of rap music coming from inside. He knocked again.

He took out a bunch of skeleton keys and fiddled with the lock for half an hour until he got the door open. His heart sank as he recognised the smell.

He walked in through a small hall into a large living-room-
cum
-kitchen. Mark Gentle lay sprawled on the floor. The back of his head was matted with dried blood, and there was a pool of dried blood on the floor. He still had a wineglass clutched in one hand; over by the window, a bottle lay on its side.

Rap music was belting out from a stereo. Hamish switched it off.

He pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He could do nothing for Mark now. The man looked as if he had been dead for at least a few days. He would need to call the police, but he wanted to search first.

There were two bedrooms. One had been turned into an office. The drawers in a large desk had all been pulled out, and papers were spread over the floor. He examined a computer and found that the hard drive had been taken.

Hamish knelt down and began to go through the papers but they seemed to be all to do with the garage: receipts, orders for spare parts, and wage slips.

Even the wastepaper basket had been emptied out on the floor. His eye was caught by a crumpled sheet of pink paper. He picked it up and smoothed it out. It was a letter. He glanced down at the signature. Margaret Gentle! She had written, “Dear Mark, You can come and stay if you like, but I am going to change my will. I am leaving everything equally to Sarah and Andrew. You have only yourself to blame by thinking you could blackmail me.”

So he knew about her plans to change the will before he even went there, thought Hamish. Had he decided he needed an alibi because he had something more sinister in mind than blackmail? I’ll never know now, he decided. He carefully wiped the front door in case he had left any fingerprints.

He wondered what to do. If he phoned the police and waited for them, he would be in grave trouble with them for arriving on their territory without telling them. Strathbane would be furious. Blair would make the most of it.

The woman who had buzzed him in had not seen him. His flaming red hair was covered in a black wool cap, which he had put on when he had walked from the Docklands Light Railway station.

His footprints would be all over the place. But if he wiped the floor, he would be destroying evidence. Mark Gentle had known his killer. The bottle and glass seemed to tell Hamish that he had poured himself a drink with his back to his visitor when he had been struck down. He wished he had not called out “Police!”

He sighed. He would have to do his duty. There was no getting away with it. He remembered seeing a surveillance camera over the door. The only lie he would tell was that he had found the door unlocked.

Hamish was grilled by the Metropolitan Police for two days, periodically being questioned when he wasn’t actually being shouted at. Orders had come down from Strathbane that he was, on his return, to stay at his police station, suspended from duties, until a disciplinary hearing.

The surveillance camera over the door turned out to be empty of tape. At first it was thought that the murderer might have removed it, but it was found to be only cheapness on the part of the landlords.

Hamish did not tell anyone that Jimmy Anderson had known what he was doing, considering that one of them in deep trouble was enough.

It was at the end of Hamish’s second day in London that the atmosphere suddenly thawed. It was actually said that the Met thought he had done good work and were prepared to forgive and forget. He was told that on his return, he should go back to his normal duties. There was to be no disciplinary hearing.

He was just leaving Scotland Yard when a familiar voice said, “Hamish!”

He turned round. Anna Krokovsky stood there, smiling at him. “We go for dinner,” she said.

“I’m rushing off to the airport to try to catch the plane,” said Hamish.

“Nonsense. You owe me dinner after all I have been doing for you.”

“Oh, that’s why . . . You spoke up on my behalf.”

“Of course I did. The fools. It would have taken them ages to find that body.There is a good Italian restaurant near here.”

Hamish gave in. It was turning out to be an expensive trip. In the short time between bouts of questioning, he had had to run out and buy a clean shirt and underwear. He had been lodged in a police flat with a large boozy constable who had a vehement hatred of the Scots and said so at great length.

“Why are you still here?” he asked Anna when they were seated in the restaurant.

“I am nearly finished. I leave for Russia next week.”

“Why did you go to the trouble of having Irena’s body flown home?”

“That was on the instructions of Grigori Antonov, her former protector. Strangely enough, he still seemed to retain an affection for her. Odd. He could have bought any pretty female he wanted. Now, from your investigations, it seems that Mark found out something about Mrs. Gentle that she did not want known.”

“There was that ‘bastard in every family’ remark,” said Hamish. “Could it be that Mrs. Gentle had had at one time an illegitimate child?”

“They are still searching the records.”

“The footprints in the flat were size seven,” said Hamish, “or so they told me. That surprises me because I’m convinced our murderer is still in the north. How long had he been dead?”

“A week. But you came down, planning to be here only for the day.”

They ordered their food.

“I did not for a moment think I would find another dead body,” said Hamish. “I was still looking for thon mysterious woman. I went to talk to Kylie Gentle again. She said something about Mark talking to Mrs. Gentle about a bastard and a skeleton in the closet.”

“So you think there might be some illegitimate member of the family lurking around?”

“Maybe not. Maybe ‘bastard’ was just a curse.”

“I feel if you dropped the whole thing—you personally— then there would be no more threats on your life.” Anna rolled a generous forkful of linguine and thrust it into her mouth. Tomato sauce rolled down her chin like blood.

“I cannae do that!” exclaimed Hamish. “Leave a murderer on the loose?”

“Why not? Cases are unsolved every day.”

“Is this what you do in Moscow? Have three murders and chust walk away?”

“If my life was threatened, I might,” said Anna. “You should be flattered. Our murderer obviously rates your intelligence highly.”

“I think it’s because I put it about that Irena had told me something significant.”

“And do you know anything?”

“Not a thing,” said Hamish. “You’ve got tomato sauce on your chin.”

“But surely the murderer would expect you to convey any knowledge to the police.”

“Not if he or she is a secretive plotting madman or -woman. But it must be a woman. There are the footprints and the woman in the phone box.”

“Could be an accomplice.”

They talked on, turning over ideas, until Hamish glanced at his watch. “If I hurry,” he said, “I can catch the late-night flight to Inverness.”

“Go on, then. I will pay for this meal and put it on expenses.”

Hamish thanked her and fled. He did not return to the police flat, considering that he was only sacrificing some dirty laundry and a disposable razor.

When he finally arrived at the police station in Lochdubh, it was to find a message from Jimmy telling him to send over a full report and take a few days off.

As he struggled along the waterfront the following morning, bending his lean form before a vicious gale, he decided to go to Patel’s and buy some groceries.

The shop was busy, and a poster behind the counter advertised the production of
Macbeth
. It was to be shown in two days’ time.

Hamish bought a ticket. “Eight pounds!” he exclaimed.

“A lot of money was spent on the costumes,” said Mr.

Patel. “You cannae hae kings and the like dressed in any auld things.”

Hamish gloomily paid up. The visit to London had made a hole in his dwindling bank balance. He bought groceries and then decided to take the presents for his mother over to Rogart and spend the day there.

He did not return until the early evening, feeling relaxed and comfortable and full of good food. He wondered how Priscilla would cope with being Lady Macbeth. It was quite a big part to learn.

Waves were mounting on the sea loch and the wind screamed and roared through the blackness of the long northern night.

The following morning, he took out the present he had bought for Priscilla and went up to the Tommel Castle Hotel.

He found Priscilla in her room, walking up and down, rehearsing her script. She broke off when she saw him.

“You’re supposed to knock, Hamish.”

“You never knock at the station. I’ve a present for you.” He handed her the wood carving.

“This is beautiful. Where did you get it?”

“Up in Grianach. You should take a run up there and buy some stuff for the hotel gift shop. They have grand tweeds as well.”

“I might go over tomorrow. Care to come with me?”

“Fine. I’m not welcome there and was told not to come back, but if you buy stuff, they won’t mind seeing me again. How’s the play going?”

“I wish I’d never started. I keep reminding myself it’s not the Royal Shakespeare Company.”

“You’ll be fine. Thon Irishman has left?”

“Yes.” A slight look of guilt appeared in Priscilla’s blue eyes. She felt she had led Patrick on only to show one highland constable who had jilted her that she was attractive to other men. She had found it quite difficult to persuade Patrick to leave.

“Are you sure you want to go tomorrow?” asked Hamish. “Surely you’ll be rehearsing like mad.”

“I’ll be glad to get away from here for a bit.”

“Why?”

“Why, why, why. Always the copper. If I work hard on the script today and put it all out of my mind tomorrow, then I’ll do better than if I worried and worried. Come at nine. I’ll get us a picnic lunch.”

The following morning, before Hamish arrived, Priscilla was just finishing her breakfast when she was joined by Harold Jury. “We’ve got a hard day’s work ahead of us,” he said. “I’ll drive you down to the village hall for the final rehearsal.”