Death of a Bore (22 page)

‘But why kill him? You could simply have gone to Tarrant and pointed out that the script was unworkable.’

‘God, I tried. The silly bugger said, “You don’t know literature when you see it. If you can’t work with it, I’ll find a producer-director who can.” It was my
big chance. Everyone in Scotland watches
Down in the Glen.
It was scheduled to be shown in England next year. No one was going to get in my way.’

Hamish, what on earth can you do? wondered Elspeth miserably.

Hamish approached the back of the Tommel Castle Hotel on his snowshoes. He let himself in at the kitchen entrance, unstrapped the snowshoes, and propped them against the wall.
Clarry, the chef, was enjoying a quiet glass of sherry and stared in surprise at Hamish.

‘Clarry,’ said Hamish urgently, ‘there’s a man with a gun in Elspeth’s room. Get the manager in here.’

Clarry hurried off and came back shortly with Mr Johnson. ‘What’s this about a gunman?’ asked the manager.

Hamish told him. ‘I need to get into Elspeth’s room. This castle is full of back passages and things. Any way I can get in there?’

The manager shook his head. ‘You’ll need to get a squad up from Strathbane.’

‘Can’t do that. It’s Paul Gibson. If he sees so much as a uniform, he’ll shoot her. He’s got nothing to lose now. He’s been fired.’

Upstairs, Elspeth fumbled in her handbag, which was on the desk.

‘What are you doing?’ demanded Paul.

‘Looking for a cigarette.’

‘Leave it.’

‘Okay’

But Elspeth had managed to switch on the small tape recorder she carried in her bag, and she left the bag wide open.

‘Why mothballs?’ she asked. ‘What put that idea in your head?’

‘Because he was like a sodding great moth, batting against my light whenever I tried to do anything. I’d distilled a solution and held the gun on him till he drank it. Then when he
was dying, I got into his computer and wiped out that rotten script. No one was going to complain about my script. They’d all had enough of John except Miss Mimsy, Alice Patty, burbling on
about what a genius her dear John was.’

‘So you had to kill her as well?’

‘She phoned me up in tears and said that she was sure I had killed John, that John had told her I had threatened his life. I told her to sit tight and I would come round and explain
everything. I told her I had proof that Patricia Wheeler had done it. She loved hearing that because she was still jealous of Patricia. I drugged a bottle of wine and took it round.’

I’m going to die, thought Elspeth miserably. I don’t think Hamish can get me out of this.

‘We could take a tray up and say, “Room service”, and put some drugged drink on the tray,’ suggested Clary.

‘He’d just make her say to leave it outside the door,’ said Hamish.

‘I could say she had to sign for it, and when she opens the door, we could rush him.’

‘He’d shoot her in the back. He’s deranged.’

‘So how do we smoke him out?’ asked Mr Johnson.

Hamish stared at him and then said, ‘That’s it! You start the fire alarm, get whoever it is who has the keys to the television vans in the forecourt, and usher everyone into them so
they don’t freeze to death. Clarry, we need something that makes really black smoke and those old-fashioned bellows from the lounge fire.’

Paul had fallen silent, although the gun in his hand never wavered. At last he said, ‘Where’s that boyfriend of yours?’

‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ said Elspeth wearily. ‘Didn’t it cross your mind he might not bother, that he might just be waiting for reinforcements from
Strathbane?’

‘Then you’re dead.’

Paul jumped as the fire alarm sounded through the hotel. Elspeth half rose. ‘Stay where you are,’ he shouted.

They began to hear people running along the corridor. Faintly she could hear someone shouting, ‘Fire!’

There came a pounding at the door and then Matthew’s voice. ‘Elspeth, are you in there? The hotel’s on fire.’

Then Freda’s voice. ‘Come on, Matthew. She’s probably downstairs.’ Then the sound of retreating footsteps.

‘It’s not on fire,’ said Paul. ‘It’s that copper thinking he can trick me into coming out.’

Keeping the gun trained on Elspeth, Paul went to the window and twitched aside the curtain. Down below, he could see figures hurrying through the blizzard and into the mobile units. Some were
turning and pointing up at the building.

‘It must be a trick,’ he said.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Elspeth. ‘Look!’

She pointed at the door.

Acrid black smoke was beginning to seep under it. ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ shouted Elspeth. ‘The place really is on fire.’

‘Stay where you are! No, open the window.’

Elspeth tried. ‘I can’t. It’s sealed shut.’

‘Get to the door and unlock it.’ Elspeth did as she was told. ‘Now stand back. I’m going to take a look. One move from you and I’ll kill you. You’ll see
it’s a trick.’

Paul looked round into the corridor. It was filled with black smoke, and to his horror, he saw red flames leaping up at the end.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’re leaving. Get in front of me.’ He dug the gun into her back. ‘Now move!’

Choking and gasping, they headed for the stairs. All the lights were out.

Suddenly a tall dark figure materialized and Paul’s wrist was seized in an iron grip.

‘Run, Elspeth!’ shouted Hamish.

Paul struggled and fought like the madman he had become. At the top of the stairs Hamish smashed Paul’s wrist down on the banister. He let out a cry of pain and dropped the gun, which fell
down the stairwell.

Hamish grabbed him by the ankles and held the struggling, screaming director upside down over the stairwell.

Clarry’s calm voice sounded in Hamish’s ear. ‘Just pull him up and handcuff him and caution him, Hamish. There’s a good lad. No point in killing him.’

Hamish and Clarry pulled Paul back up. Hamish handcuffed him and cautioned him.

Somehow word had got around about what was really happening. The dishwasher had overheard the plan and had told the under-chef, who had told the maître d’, who had told the barman,
and so when Paul was led handcuffed down the stairs, it was to find television cameras pointed at him, recording his arrest. He let out an unearthly yell and was still screaming when they locked
him in the office and Hamish phoned Strathbane and asked for a police helicopter to lift them off.

He found Elspeth at his elbow. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. Her face was black with smoke.

‘I feel a bit sick. I’ll be worse tomorrow when the shock sets in.’

‘I should get you to a hospital. You’ll be suffering from smoke inhalation.’

‘I’m fine. You’ve got your murderer and I’ve got a great story.’

‘The trouble is,’ said Hamish, ‘if he ever recovered his wits, he can deny the whole thing. It’s going to be one of those cases based on circumstantial evidence. Oh, we
can get him for holding you at gunpoint, but if he gets a clever lawyer, the lawyer will try to persuade the jury that because of one crime, the police were fitting him up for another.’

Her silvery eyes gleamed. ‘Hamish, I’ve got him saying he did it on tape.’

‘You darling! How? Where?’

‘I told him I was looking in my handbag for a cigarette, and I switched on my tape recorder.’

‘Could you go and get it? I’d better stay here outside the office just in case he tries to make a break for it.’

Elspeth darted off. Clarry, the chef, had reverted in manner to the days when he used to be on the police force. ‘Move along there,’ he was saying to the onlookers.
‘There’s nothing to see. Guests, go back to your rooms, and you television lot go back to the lounge and Mr Johnson will find you rooms for the night.’

Mr Johnson came up to Hamish. ‘The snow’s stopped, but I’m getting all those mobile units moved out on to the road, or the helicopter won’t be able to land.’

‘Where’s Matthew Campbell?’ asked Hamish.

‘He was snogging with the schoolteacher in the corner of the bar. Here he comes.’

‘Where’s Elspeth?’ asked Matthew.

‘She’s probably up in her room filing the story of a lifetime. Didn’t you hear what was going on? She was held by the murderer at gunpoint.’

Freda came up and put her arm through Matthew’s. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Come with me,’ said Matthew. ‘I’ve been missing out on a great story.’

Hamish waited and fidgeted. What was taking Elspeth so long?

At last she appeared and handed him the tape. ‘It’s all there.’

‘What kept you?’

‘I was making a copy. He’s very quiet in there. Is he all right?’

Hamish unlocked the office door. Paul was sitting slumped in a chair, his handcuffed hands behind him. His eyes were vacant. Hamish locked the door again.

‘I think he’s lost it,’ he said. ‘I think this is one that won’t stand trial. His lawyer will claim he’s unfit to stand because of insanity.’

‘I’d better get back upstairs,’ said Elspeth. ‘I’m going to have heavy expenses. My suitcase was open on the bed with my clothes in it, and they’re all
soot-blackened. What did you use for the fire?’

‘Clarry scorched a mixture of rubber and something on a stove, and we lit a fire in a steel bin at the end of the corridor. Are you sure you shouldn’t be going to
hospital?’

‘No, I’m fine. Got to go.’

Then Hamish heard the roar of a helicopter and went to the door of the hotel. The snow had stopped, but the blades of the helicopter were whipping up a blizzard of their own.

Jimmy Anderson and his colleague, Harry MacNab, were the first out, followed by policemen.

‘He’s in the office, Jimmy,’ said Hamish, ‘and here’s a tape of his confession. But he seems to have lost his wits, so I don’t think you’ll get much out
of him.’

‘Faking it?’

‘I don’t think so. I think he was insane all along and now he’s gone over the edge.’

‘You’ve solved this case. You’d better come back to Strathbane with us.’

‘Would you mind handling it yourself, Jimmy? I’ve left my dog at the police station.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Hamish.’

‘I’ll send over a full report. Honest.’

‘What exactly happened?’

In a few brief sentences Hamish outlined how he had begun to suspect Paul, about the kidnapping of Elspeth and the rescue.

‘Right. I’ll take him in. Don’t you want to come back with us and rub Blair’s nose in it?’

‘No, I’m fine. You go ahead.’

‘He’ll try to take the credit.’

‘Let him.’

‘Hamish, you could get that friend of yours, Angela, to look after Lugs. You don’t want Daviot to hear how you solved the case in case he promotes you out of Lochdubh.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I think there’s more than one madman here. Anyway, get that statement over as soon as possible.’

‘Where is Blair, by the way?’

‘He’d checked out for the night. I’ll wake him up when we get back.’

Hamish retrieved his snowshoes from the kitchen and strapped them on outside. But when he reached the road, he was able to take them off again. The road had been ploughed and
gritted again. The cities of the south might wait in vain for a snowplough or gritter, but the little roads of Sutherland were well serviced. He trudged down to the police station.

When he switched on the kitchen light, nothing happened. He fished out an old hurricane lamp and lit it. Lugs woke up and demanded food. Hamish gave him a dog biscuit instead. Lugs was getting
too fat and had been fed already.

He felt bone-weary, but he knew that with a power cut, his computer wouldn’t work and he would have to go to Strathbane, after all.

Hamish peered up at the blazing stars as he drove along. The winds of Sutherland were like stage curtains, whipping back the clouds to reveal another scene. A small pale blue
moon cast an eerie light over the white landscape.

When he crested a rise and saw Strathbane below him, it had been sanitized by snow, lights twinkling through the whiteness like a Christmas card. His parents had told him that Strathbane had
once been a prosperous fishing port but that a combination of highland laziness and brutal European Union fishing quotas had sent it into decline. Then a new motorway from the south had been built,
allowing drugs and villains to travel north in comfort and set up new markets.

He parked outside police headquarters and went up to the detectives’ room. Jimmy hailed him. ‘They’re keeping him under suicide watch for the night until the police
psychiatrist interviews him in the morning. Why did you decide to come?’

Hamish told him about the power cut. ‘Well, grab a computer and start typing,’ said Jimmy.

As he typed his report, Hamish could only marvel that his obsession with that script had paid off. He had once been on a case where a scriptwriter had been murdered by an author. What made some
writers and would-be writers so dangerously vain and unstable? Maybe they were like actors, always craving attention, not quite grown up.

Hamish just wanted to get the report finished and get home. It was a relief to think that Superintendent Daviot would be safely home in bed, and by the time he turned up for work in the morning,
Blair would be ready and waiting to take the credit.

He did not know that at that very moment Blair was closeted upstairs in the super’s office, talking to Daviot.

‘This is good work,’ Daviot was saying, ‘and it was right of you to wake me up.’

Blair thought quickly. It would be a tortuous business trying to hide the fact that it was Macbeth who had solved the two murders. But on the other hand, if Macbeth got the kudos, Daviot would
once more want him transferred to Strathbane. Before Macbeth could be promoted, there would be assessments and exams. Macbeth would hate that. And with any luck, while it was all going on, the
police station at Lochdubh would be closed down.

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Blair with the oily smile he always had on his face when talking to his superior, ‘it was Macbeth that solved the whole thing.’